


Shades of Blue ~ Cobalt

by bluedawn



Series: Shades of Blue [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Multi-Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:36:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4143162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedawn/pseuds/bluedawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler, rescued from the parallel world by the Doctor (although not the one she expected), has been brought back to the Doctor (although not the one she expected), delivered to the Doctor (although not the one she expected) and is now, finally, back with the Doctor (the one she expected all along).  This is their tale.  Final story in the "Past, Present and Future" series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ten I

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read this series and sent encouraging words! It is (finally) time to begin the last leg of this epic journey with Rose and the Doctor. I hope you enjoy this final full-length installment and the Interludes that will follow. My hope is to update once a week. Special thanks the the BWR ladies for their help! Happy Holidays and long live the Doctor/Rose! =) *Many of the italicized flashback bits come from Cerulean, Navy and the Nine to Ten Regeneration Interlude

Time is a strange, wild, maddening thing. It winds and whirls, twines and twists, dances and skips. It can joyously fly, passing by in a whirlwind of birthdays and weddings and merry laughter and it can ponderously crawl, dragging past with missed trains and broken dates and the drudgery of mislaid memories. Jubilant hours slip through clenched fingers and moments best left in the past return to haunt the present. It wibbles and wobbles, coils and curves, wrenches and warps but no matter its contortions, it still has always been said that Time stands still for no man.

Yet on an almost deserted planet of red rocks and dust, in the control room of the final TARDIS in existence, the last of the Time Lords and the impossible woman who dared to love him stood, neither daring to blink, to breathe, to move, each afraid that their ongoing fantasies of together might, in an instant, shatter and break forever, never to return again, crushing with it three hearts and all their hopes for the future. 

And so, miraculously, this moment, this instant, this tiny little grain in the sands of the universe itself, settled, frozen in Time. For, after all, its Champion had spoken, its Goddess had willed and, for them today, Time would stop.

They might have stood there, suspended forever in a state of not-knowing, had it not been for the voices, deep inside them both that called, in tones young and old, Scottish to Northern, past to future, altogether, Forward!

“Is this a dream, Donna? Is...is she really there?” he rasped. The Doctor finally worked up the nerve to speak, fear and desperation evident in his voice, addressing not the hope of his future but the stalwart friend of his past. The woman who had pushed and prodded and made all of this (if it was real. It must be real. It had to be real.) possible.

Forward.

Donna smiled, her keen eyes blurred with her own tears. She had watched him for the past few months, moving through life in what she had realized just now, was merely a daze. He had been surviving but now, now she had a chance to watch him live. He deserved the universe, this daft spaceman who had wandered it for so long wishing for a hand to hold, wishing, in fact, for far longer than he could ever have imagined, for that hand to hold. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?” she asked softly, nodding to the frozen blonde standing in the door.

The Doctor turned slowly toward the woman, his face full of terrible hope and wondrous fear. “Rose,” he whispered and then he couldn’t tell if Time sped up or Time slowed down and, for once, he didn’t care, because she smiled. A bright, familiar, loving smile that illuminated all the dark places that had been growing in his soul in her absence and broke the spell Time had cast over the two of them. 

He ran for Rose, his long limbs flying across the console room faster than he’d ever moved before and she ran for him, her gleaming presence calling to him, finding its long-lost partner at last. They crashed together on the ramp, arms holding too tightly, hands gripping too fiercely, words babbled too incoherently but it didn’t matter. 

Because they were together.

Together.

Radiantly, brilliantly, impossibly...together.

Forward, indeed.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rose was the first to pull back, just the slightest bit, to look him in the eye, to see that soft, chocolate gaze she had been missing for so long now. It was strange, however, how she almost seemed to not see the colour anymore. Now she just saw him. Blue-gray shifted to piercing ice which melted to soft amber and then dissolved into several other colors she couldn’t quite name (yet, anyway), all blended together into the glorious essence of the Doctor. As she peered into his eyes, her mind instinctively brushed against his as she had been practicing for the past few weeks with his two previous forms and the TARDIS.

The Doctor’s (brown, this time) eyes widened and, surprised at the sudden, very intimate mental contact he’d never experienced before (wait...had he?), he stepped back from her, not too far, his hands were still clutched on her shoulders, but far enough to blink and gape at her a moment. Surely he had just imagined that. Rose was brilliant, she was here, and she was brilliant and he loved her but she couldn’t possibly have just - 

Oh! He loved her! He should tell her that, right? Now?

The Doctor moved his hands on her shoulders ever so slightly, moving to cup her face and tell her how very precious she was when his pinky brushed aside the collar of her shirt and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. There, on her collarbone, at a spot he’d always fantasized about himself, was an intimate dark bruise, one clearly made by teeth and tongues and lips. He stumbled back from her and Rose’s eyes grew wide and panicked at his retreat.

Admittedly, he couldn’t quite remember what had happened when his Eighth self had gone to pick up Rose (and wasn’t that annoying), but he certainly never would have done that, not in his stuffy, posh waistcoat and cravat, not when he didn’t ever do things like that, not when he didn’t even know Rose at all and so that only left…

She must have had that done by someone else before his earlier form had found her. There must have been another man. Recently, too. Five to seven days for a bruise like that to disappear from human skin and it was still very dark. 

Dark, deep emotions flared up within him, possessiveness battling dread, anger fighting disappointment. (She was supposed to be his. No, more than that, she was his. His Rose. He knew it.) Though, even if she had been in a relationship (and his stomach curled again at that thought), she had obviously given it up to come back to him, hadn’t she? She was here, with him, now. She had managed to convince his Eighth self to bring her back here, to find him now. But if she’d let someone else touch her, be with her, especially before he’d ever had the chance to tell her…how could he ever stand it?

For her part, Rose watched him carefully, mystified by and wary of his sudden retreat. This was not how she’d always pictured their reunion. She’d pictured a lot more snogging. And perhaps some stammering (he was good at that). And then some shagging. Lots of things that started with ‘s’, apparently. 

Just as she had been able to feel the emotions of her last Doctor, even when he’d been shielding heavily, now she felt the waves of betrayal and jealousy and possessiveness rolling off him, replacing the astonishment, relief and affection that had been radiating from him. What had caused his sudden change? He’d been so close just a moment ago...her hand flew up to her neck, where he’d been touching her before he’d backed away, still feeling the phantom fingers of his touch, when her own hand brushed against the brand on her neck.

The brand he had put there.

Oh, that daft bugger.

“I, Rose, you, we’re -” the Doctor began, after a deep breath, his eyes darting around to search for Donna for help or distraction, Donna who seemed to have vanished at some point. How was he to face Rose now? What was he going to say? What was she going to say? She was back and that was more than he ever thought he would get but still...he’d thought...but apparently he’d got it wrong.

Ooo, didn’t that sound familiar?

Rose just wanted to roll her eyes. And there was the stammering. 

She took a step toward him and he stumbled backwards, eyes wide, his knees colliding with the jumpseat. Rose felt the TARDIS’ exasperation with her own and, muttering about silly old alien sods and bollixed reunions, she reached forward without any preamble and put her hands on his temples. It was a bit rude, but so was assuming she’d let somebody else give her a love bite, not to mention retreating from her (again) before they could even properly begin. With the help of the Timeship, she surged forward, past the surprised Doctor’s barriers, intent on unlocking his memories. A picture was worth a thousand words, right? And, given the chance, her Time Lord would bury them under far more than a thousand words so she was just going to have to find the right pictures for him. She pushed aside her curiosity and her nosiness for the moment, focusing on her mission instead of the immensely deep pleasure she was feeling being intimately joined with him like this.

The Doctor, for his part, was far too shocked to do much of anything. Rose was - but Rose couldn’t possibly - and the TARDIS was - but why and - oh. 

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Five billion languages and all he could manage was ‘oh’.

That felt good.

That felt, really, reeeallllly good.

Any more questions he had in the moment were quite neatly blasted away as a wave of pleasure like he’d never felt before swept through him and it was lucky he’d already been sitting on the jumpseat or he’d most certainly be on the floor. 

Rassilon and Omega, what Rose’s mind felt like in his. He shuddered and drew in a shaky breath. It felt like it was made for him. Like she just fit into all the empty places of his mind, like she completed him in a way he hadn’t even realized he was incomplete. It felt like she was his salvation, his other half, his bondmate, his home. His, his….well, his.

It also felt distinctly not-human-y. 

He could worry about that later. Right now, he was too concerned with shoving his knees apart and using his arms to pull Rose in closer so their bodies would connect the same way their minds were and - what was all this bothersome clothing doing in the way? 

Wait...what was he doing?

Rose, however, seemed entirely focused on singing through his mind and he, quite honestly, didn’t understand what, precisely, she was doing. Ah well, simple way to fix that, instinct offered and, just as he was unconsciously raising his hands to her temples to reciprocate, she found what she was looking for and he once again lost control of the situation as long-suppressed memories from over a lifetime ago came flooding back in.

“Where were you going in such a hurry?”

“Got trapped by accident. Been trying to get back but no luck yet. In fact, you told me yourself that it was impossible.”

“Not a morning person, I take it?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be back there soon. And...in the meantime, I’m right here.” 

“Lots of things about not getting here sooner and something about twenty-two hours in France.”

“Do I love you?”

“We never talked about it and we certainly never did anything about it.”

“Told you I wanted to explore that more later.”

“Yes, I did. Two days ago by the London Eye. She crashed into me while she was looking for my TARDIS.”

“I told you I would give her the universe. And I will.”

“Now, you listen to me, Time Lord. Let’s get this straight once and for all. I love you. The changing body thing took a bit to get used to, I’ll give you that, but it doesn’t matter to me. I do like the sounds you make...and that you like mine. Whatever you become, whatever you do, whatever sounds you make in the future...I’ll like ‘em, too. Got that?”

“Coricana is a pleasure planet, part of a pair of them actually. They were created specifically for this purpose, for romance, for dancing, for evenings under the stars with the person you care about most in the universe. Coming here is a promise.”

“A promise of what?”

“Forever.” 

He gasped and jerked his head back out of her grasp as wave upon wave of memories came crashing in on him. Memories of meeting a mysterious anomaly in a parallel world, of inexplicably falling for her, of dancing with her, of -Holy Rassilon- dancing with her (multiple times in multiple places and fuck - wow) and...

“You - me - we, ROSE,” he stammered. He’s kissed her, he’s touched her, he’s been inside her, he’s ENGAGED to her and yet he’s never done any of those things and oh -

Another portion of his memory thundered in.

“And even though I’ll have to forget this for a while...I want you to know that I’ll carry it with me forever, locked away until I can remember again. And even if I can’t remember the specifics, no matter what it is that’s coming...and I know something is, I’ll remember that I was happy and subconsciously I’ll keep looking for you, no matter what, even if I don’t know why. I’ll find you and we’ll start this all over again.”

He had promised and that promise had kept him alive following the Time War (and -oh!- the golden goddess of his dreams!).

Oh, Rose.

Suddenly it matters if he lives or dies.

Because she is real. And she is coming.

He promised. And so did she.

The Doctor stumbled to a standing position, reaching toward her, hands outstretched. Rose, his Rose. She’d done so, so much for him. She was the reason he’d had the courage to be able to do what he had to do, she was the reason he’d made it through the Time War, she was the reason he was still alive.

But then he had and she had...she had…

“Future TARDIS, future Doctor, yes.” 

He knew what was coming next, almost threw up his hands as if to physically ward off the memories he knew were coming, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to forget one single moment they’d ever spent together, no matter how shameful or painful the events might come out to be. He had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly how he’d survived immediately after the Time War. He just hoped he hadn’t hurt her too badly in that unstable state. The final set of his memories came pouring in then, helpless and unwilling as he was to stop them. 

“Who the hell are you?”

“You’re mine?”

“Why do you call me that?”

“Since you don’t know what this body looks like yet, how about I describe it to you, yeah?” 

“S’more than just a promise, though, Rose. You are mine. Body, mind, soul. If I’m right, and I’m fairly certain I am, you’re bonded to me.”

“You’re an idiot. No wonder you lose her.”

“That kiss. The first one. You sure it didn’t mean anything?

“I realize that my transgressions against you, both past and future are many, but I swear to you that I will do better. I will be better and someday, perhaps, I will deserve you. And so, I offer you only and all of what I have left: a home to share, a hand to hold and my hearts for now until eternity.” 

“How can you possibly love me like that?”

“You’re all my Doctor.”

Rose was a step away from the bench, watching the Doctor carefully, her hands clasped in front of her. Perhaps that hadn’t been the best approach but she just wanted him to remember...to remember her, to remember them. 

He was sitting unnaturally still, particularly odd for this constantly moving form (unless he didn’t do that anymore...who knows how long it had been for him? How much had he changed? How much had she?) His elbows were on his knees, his back slumped and his head was cradled in his hands. 

“Doctor?” she asked tentatively, avoiding the temptation to look at his emotions. 

He shuddered and drew in a deep, shaky breath and then slowly his gaze came up to meet hers. There were tears in his eyes and on his cheeks and she wanted nothing more than to step toward him and kiss them away, but she still didn’t know how to proceed on this tentative ground of their fledgling relationship “Rose,” he rasped, the sound dragged from deep inside of him, pulled out with more emotion than she’d ever heard from him, any him.

And with that, he launched himself at her again, pulling her to him as tightly as he could, every brilliant millimeter of him pressed into her against the console. His mouth was at her neck, frantically whispering in his beautiful chiming language as his hands compulsively swept over her back and bottom and head, clenching and releasing as though he was sure this was all imagined, as though she would disappear in an instant and leave him. Rose felt him tentatively brush his mind against hers, just a fleeting, almost accidental touch, as if he were afraid she would reject the contact. Instead, she slowly began to drop her shields, not wanting to overwhelm him but desperately wanting the connection with him.

His entire body stiffened at even the slightest caress from her mind, making her panic, but just as she began to retreat, he surged forward, mentally and physically. His mouth met hers in a sudden onslaught of lips and tongue, just as fierce and desperate as his last form had been in their first kiss. There was now, however, the added levels of his deep love for her and the desperation of their separation. Her hands scrabbled for purchase along his suit jacket, one moving up to his fabulous hair and the other down to his fantastic arse, pulling him tighter against her until she was practically sure they were one being. 

But it was his mind billowing and breaking alongside hers that had her even more entranced than the physical sensation of him. She eagerly welcomed his presence, marvelling in the feel of him all around her, surrounding her, enveloping her. Connection with him had always felt incredible but there was something about it this time, about this him, that just felt right, like they were finally slotting into one another precisely where they belonged. When the chaotic swirl of his frenzied need slowed a bit, Rose was finally able catch her first glimpse of his consciousness.

Most of what she saw was a brilliant, beautiful cobalt colour and her breath caught in her chest as she marvelled at how utterly exquisite he was, breath-taking and awe-inspiring. There were, however, deep, wide stretches of the grim, somber navy of his predecessor, some of them in shades far darker than he had been when she’d left him just moments ago, fracturing the brightness of his beryl presence. That navy banding was just another representation of the darkness that still lived in him, the guilt and the grief he carried. She knew that he would never heal completely, but perhaps together they could work to keep the shadows at bay, to minimize the darkness in his mind until those dark streaks were as thin as the pinstripes of his wool armour. 

The Doctor moaned against her as one of his clever hands found its way to the bare skin of her back under the jumper, both of them shivering at the contact. Rose retaliated by yanking his oxford from the waist of his trousers and running left hand up his spine as far as she could reach. With both of them gaining more intimate skin-to-skin contact, their link blazed white hot with desire and Rose’s knees gave way, held up only by the Doctor’s very tight grip. He ripped his mouth from hers and Rose gasped for breath as he muttered, “Bond,” against her skin.

Rose tried to manage some sort of reply, but his clever mouth had found the spot counterpoint to the marking on the left side of her neck and he was very intent on making her right side one to match. When she regained feeling in her legs, she decided that a much better place for them was wrapped around the Doctor’s waist, a feat she accomplished quite easily. He groaned into her neck once more as she shifted against him, mumbling something and then redoubling his efforts. She could feel him hard and rippling already against the confines of his trousers and tried to work a hand in between them but they were pressed so tightly together she couldn’t seem to manage. Instead, Rose moved both hands down to grip his (still fantastic, what’d she tell him?) arse, pulling him against her, hard.

Their minds were moving against one another in harmony with their bodies, both frantically straining and seeking more, yet she could sense in the Doctor a small, mauve alarm going off. It was then that her hazy senses were able to put together the sounds he was muttering into her skin as semi-coherent words. 

Wait.

He was saying wait. His body and hers, for that matter, were saying exactly the opposite, but one of the was going to have to stop and, apparently, it was going to have to be her. She, quite reluctantly, pulled her hands from his hair and his back, moving them to his chest and pressing against him lightly. At the same time, she eased her mind back from his (and oh, wasn’t that painful) just the tiniest bit. 

That seemed to be all the Doctor needed to find some semblance of his control. His head moved up off her neck, first resting on her shoulder and then against hers, temple to temple before he stepped backward from her a few millimeters, leaving her propped up on the edge of the console, her knees brushing his thighs, his hands moving up to clasp with hers over his hearts. “The bond,” he mumbled again before shaking his head as if to clear it. She felt his mental presence retreat back a little bit more, both of them acutely feeling the separation.

“What about the bond, Doctor?” Rose asked, caught between irritation that they’d stopped and a small modicum of relief. Something big was happening, bigger than they’d already experienced and she felt like they needed to talk about it.

She just really, really didn’t want to.

At least not in this moment. Mostly she just wanted to…

The Doctor cleared his throat, blushing from the tips of his ears all the way to where his delicious throat disappeared into his unbuttoned oxford collar. “I can still see that, Rose,” he coughed, tightening his hands on hers.

“I know,” Rose responded cheekily, grinning at him. 

He gaped at her a moment and then he threw his head back and laughed, crushing her to his chest once more. Rose’s heart clenched at the oh-so-familiar, long-lost sound combined with the scent of him everywhere, her nose buried in his neck and a powerful wave of love swept through her into him, causing his breath to hitch over her shoulder. “This bond, Rose,” he began, pulling back from her once more and panting a bit as their new position shifted with some delicious friction for both of them. “I can’t know for sure, but I’m fairly certain that since this is the first time we’ve been in the same place at the same time in the same stage of the bond that if we - when we - are together for the first time, we’re going to complete it and I…”

“If this is going to be you giving me an out or trying to convince me not to do it for my own good, I don’t want to hear it, Time Lord,” she replied, moving one of the fingers still entwined with his to poke him in the chest. “I made my choice a long time ago. I’m yours, Doctor,” and he shivered at that, “and that’s never going to change.” Rose scowled up at him a moment, daring him to try and convince her otherwise but he simply smiled at her and her doubt and anger instantly melted away.

“And I’m yours, Rose,” he replied, making her shiver just as he had done, the words evoking something ancient and powerful in her mind. “But I think we need to know a bit more about this bond before we go any further. I need…we need to know exactly what we’re getting into here.”

“In case you decide you don’t want it?” Rose asked quietly, her hurt showing in both her voice and the receding joy in her mind, pulling away from him slightly. 

“No!” he responded quickly, reaching out to sooth her, to pull her back into him, physically and mentally. “I want it. I want you, Rose, and everything you can give me, more than you can possibly imagine, but -”

Rose, irritated now at what she perceived as him running from her once more, interrupted him, “But what, Doctor? All of our relationship, before Eighth you, anyway or I guess after Eighth you, or, well, however this crossing timelines thing works, everything back then was just ‘but’s and ‘what-if’s and ‘if only’s. M’not going back to that, now that I know what we can be. I’m tired of regrets, Doctor. Aren’t -”

“It could hurt you!” he exploded suddenly, ripping his hands from hers and sending them straight into his already riotous hair, stumbling back from her again. “What if something goes wrong? What if it’s too much? Your telepathic abilities are strong, I noticed back when I first met you, but what if you’re not strong enough yet? What if my mind burns through yours like it almost did in my Ninth body, right after my regeneration? I just got you back, Rose. I can’t lose you again,” the Doctor finished, his voice going so soft she barely heard him. “I just...I can’t.”

Rose slipped down from the console to walk over to him, wrapping her arms around him once more, an embrace he melted into immediately. They stood, holding one another against the universe for a long time, neither daring to move. The TARDIS wouldn’t let him do anything that would hurt her, she was sure of that. The Timeship hummed in agreement with her and then brushed against her mind, lightly, showing her an image of her pack and a wave of encouragement. Then Rose remembered that she had something for him, something that might help. She wasn’t sure exactly where it had come from because she couldn’t remember the Doctor giving it to her, but she was sure it was there all the same. “C’mere,” she said, pulling him along with her over to her red pack, unwilling to relinquish her grip on him for even a moment. 

Bending down and awkwardly opening her pack one handed, she pulled out a large, ornately decorated ancient book. 

“Rose - what? Where did you get this?” the Doctor marvelled, running the fingers of his free hand over the gilded pages of the book.

“You gave it to me,” she responded, tilting her head to the side and considering him. “Or maybe the TARDIS did.” She stuck her tongue in the corner of her mouth, straining her memory to figure out where exactly the book came from when there was a loud thump at her feet. Before she could register what had made the noise, however, the Doctor’s mouth was back on hers, capturing her tongue with his own, both of his hands fisting in her blonde tresses. 

“Always wanted to do that,” he murmured against her lips as he pulled back, smoothing her hair back down and grinning like the Cheshire cat. He bent down to pick up the discarded book near her feet.

“Always wanted you to,” she responded, smiling back at him as he took her hand.

“So, library?” the Doctor asked, waggling his eyebrows at her.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just stay out here and have a good, hard, reunion shag on the jumpseat instead of reading that dusty old book?” Rose questioned, sending him a few very detailed (and explicit) console fantasies she’d entertained (in both his bodies). Bond completion or not, her body and mind were still humming with arousal and she wanted him. Desperately.

His eyes glazed over a moment before his grip tightened on the book. “Plenty of time for that later, Ms. Tyler,” he answered, finally, sending her a few fantasies back, which caused her to stumble on the grating, much to his amusement. He caught her, steadying her with their clasped hands, before leaning in and brushing his lips against her ear. “And believe me, Rose, I am going to take. My. Time,” he growled, before pulling away to drag her off toward the library.


	2. Ten II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Rose go to the library to do some talking and reading but get a bit...distracted along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wellll, that took much longer than I wanted it to! Hopefully it's worth the wait for you! There are two interludes that I'd like to make out of this one, eventually. One with Nine/Rose in the library for the first time and one day there will be a fic explaining the Toaster room. I've got big plans for that. =) Thanks so much for the support and reviews! Special thanks to Larx and KK for doing a test read!

The silence that fell over them as they walked down the hall was not an uncomfortable one, although perhaps it should have been with all the years and experiences and unspoken words between them. Rose could feel the Doctor's mind just on the outskirts of hers, whirling with a myriad of thousands of thoughts and she imagined hers was much the same (although perhaps not quite so complex). His hand in hers was cool and sure and she clung to it, that familiar contact serving as a balancing point in their newly developed, yet fundamentally same, relationship. Whatever they were about to discover was going to change things, certainly, but no matter what, they were together now and nothing was ever going to come between them again. She wouldn’t let it and, she was sure, neither would he.

Her breath caught as they entered the library, the achingly familiar room looking just as it did in all her memories. Their favourite couch was pulled close to the fire, the picture Jackie had taken of the two of them in Christmas crowns was still on the mantle and sitting on the well-worn coffee table was heaping tray of tea and biscuits. Rose had the fleeting thought that there should be a nice, fluffy rug in front of the fire, too; she could almost picture it there already. Anyway, a nice, soft rug would come in handy for some of the plans she had for this particular room later. The Doctor made an odd choking sound to her left and she turned a sly smile on him, giggling as she saw him staring hotly at that same spot on the floor before his darkened gaze snapped back to hers. Apparently he agreed about the rug-concept, then.

The two of them walked over and settled on the couch together, the Doctor removing his suit jacket and placing it and the book gently on the cushion beside him before turning to face Rose, his thumb stroking hers gently and his other hand running along the soft leather of the couch. She knew he was probably positively itching to get reading that book, but they needed a bit more time confirming this new-found reality of a future (and a past) together. His deep brown eyes regarded her with a look so tender, Rose felt tears threatening the corners of her eyes, tears she didn’t bother holding back. “I...I missed you. So much,” she finally stuttered, breaking the silence and clenching the hand in hers tightly. “I didn’t really get to talk about it much with the others - well, with you, before. You wouldn’t have understood back then, I don’t think, and it was such a miracle just to have found you again, whatever forms you were in, but everything was...it was hard over there, Doctor. I had Mum and Pete and Mickey, so I shouldn’t complain, I suppose but...I wanted you. I missed you,” she repeated, letting him see how much she meant that.

The Doctor moved forward to envelop her tightly, albeit a bit awkwardly, on the couch. “I know,” he breathed into her hair. “Me too, Rose. It was...I...me too,” he whispered. His mind brushed against hers, returning the desperate, overwhelming loss he’d felt as keenly as her and once again, she also felt that small but terrifying tinge of madness that lurked in the depths of darkness that existed when he was on his own. Ignoring that for now, Rose focused back on the physical sensation of him, felt him pressing light kisses into her hair, his arms clutched around her still. Finally, he took a shuddering breath and pulled back, one hand remaining on her shoulder across the back of the couch and the other re-claiming hers. 

“I missed the TARDIS, too, of course,” Rose said, smiling at him and then at the ceiling, shaking off her tears and feeling the warm, happy pulse of the TARDIS in her mind. She needed to pull them back from the pain of their remembered separation. There would be plenty of time later to talk about what had happened to them while apart. “My perfect mattress, never running out of hot water, the jacuzzi, the toaster room…” she trailed off and grinned at him. “But I missed this room most of all, I think,” Rose said softly. They had spent so many hours holed up in here, reading, dozing, chatting and simply enjoying each other’s presence. It had become their safe zone, their retreat from the harsh and sometimes violent world that existed outside the weathered blue doors of their home, a place just for them.

The TARDIS had first led her here early in her travels with him one day when she was bored and seeking entertainment while he did some ‘important and necessary repair-work’ (which she had translated from years of knowing a mechanic, albeit not an alien one, to ‘irrelevant and needless tinkering’). He’d grunted at her to shove off because she was being ‘distracting’ somehow and she’d left in a bit of a huff at him. But the TARDIS had engaged her in merry game of ‘What’s behind the door?’ and she had been most delighted with the library, perusing the shelves for hours, amused to see books of Earth (tomes she recognized, from Shakespeare to Harry Potter) chaotically interspersed with everything from what appeared to be stereo manuals to alien medical texts to something called ‘Vogon poetry’, in a variety of sizes, colours and languages. She had picked a few titles at random and settled near the fire on the floor, thumbing through the pages and sipping at some perfect TARDIS-provided tea.

The Doctor had appeared a few hours later, looking gruffly surprised to see her (although she would later suspect he’d gone looking for her - and been right). He had also seemed grudgingly surprised by the ‘new’ sole seating option the TARDIS had offered by the fireside in the form of this very couch, although they had wasted little time settling onto it, nervously eyeing one another. He’d read her Dickens and they’d both pretended that the occasional brush of a booted foot against a trainer-ed one, or the incidental glance of arm against arm from opposite sides of the couch was accidental, a game they would continue for the next several years, even if leather traded out for wool, boots became plimsoles and a passing bump morphed into something dangerously like cuddling.

She now knew, of course, that this very couch had been in the library before that fateful day, in both his Eighth and Ninth lives, at least during her time with him, he just didn’t remember it. She also knew that the clever TARDIS seemed to have based it on the couch from her flat in the parallel world where the two of them had settled for the first time to explore the depths of her telepathy. Of course, she had bought that couch because it reminded her of the couch on the TARDIS, this couch. Rose shook her head, marveling again at the odd, wonderful circles Time took in her life, delightfully complicated as it was by her Time Lord and his magnificent ship.

The Doctor was looking around them contemplatively, his eyes sweeping the room as though seeing it for the first time as he relived that memory and so many subsequent ones in this cherished place, echoing Rose’s thoughts. "The library hasn't looked liked this in a long time, Rose," he said, taking in the roaring fire and soft, loving light the TARDIS was exuding. "This couch, the fireplace, the pictures…any...any of it." He trailed off then, apparently lost in a deep, painful place and Rose watched as the darkened stripes in his mind seemed to gain prominence. She squeezed his hand gently, sending him a few tentative waves of comfort and assurance, which seemed to draw him back to her, the navy receding a bit.

He had that look on his face again, the one that seemed to barely be able to comprehend her and then he took a deep breath and Rose felt him reach forward across their partial bond. Tentative images flickered through his mind to her, a clip of memory featuring a smaller, cooler, much less welcoming hearth and two rather uncomfortable-looking armchairs, one housing a pale, sad-eyed, blue-suited Doctor and the other an attractive young woman in a red leather jacket studying a book of some kind. "That's Martha," he said, quietly. "She had the misfortune of knowing me right after I lost you. I was a mess then and I didn’t treat her very well. She left after only a little while, really. She deserved better than me, anyway."

Rose took in that sliver of information, filing away the name and details to piece together into the tapestry of his life since they’d been separated. She wasn’t sure how long it would take him to open up to her about it, but anything he offered her, she would take right now. They both had wounds to heal and only Time and one another would be able to do it.

The image shifted then, the fireplace becoming slightly larger again, the Doctor's chair remaining the same, the Doctor in it still pale and haggard, looking harder and older somehow, but the other chair, now filled with a no-nonsense redhead reading a rag, looked much more fluffier than the last. "Donna demanded a more comfortable chair," he commented, smiling softly. "I couldn’t have stopped her even if I’d wanted to. She's a force, Donna is. The TARDIS is in cahoots with her most of the time, I think. I suppose I’ll have to get used to that...all three of you are going to be ganging up on me now.”

“She sounds brilliant,” Rose answered, smiling at him.

“She is,” he smiled back. “I owe her so, so much.” He paused a moment, the depth of his gaze making her wonder what exactly he meant by that. “She gave me something, the most precious gift I’ve ever received and I will never be able to thank her enough for it. Even if she called me a lot of names along the way.”

“What’d she give you?” Rose asked, although she had an idea. If she was right, she owed the woman more than she could ever possibly repay as well.

“First she gave me back my hope,” he said, moving forward to rest his forehead against hers. “And then she gave me back you,” the Doctor finished, pressing his lips to hers lightly, this kiss radiating his devotion and cherishment. He pulled back a moment later, lingering lovingly and simply breathing in and out with her. 

"How long has it been for you?" Rose asked, tentatively, torn between dreading the knowledge and wanting to chase away the somber darkness that clung to him.

"Five Earth years," he replied, his voice breaking a bit, moving the hand not clasped with hers up to stroke her cheek. "Although one of them doesn't really count, I suppose," the Doctor continued, his thumb stalling and his eyes closing tightly. Rose gasped at the dark wave of anguish and grief that shot through him as he remembered the time to which that confusing sentence apparently referred. His eyes snapped open at the sound of sympathy she made and she felt him pull further back from the provisional bond, unwilling to share whatever horror that had been yet. "And you?"

She knew he had a vague idea of the passage of time for her from his memories of their time together in the parallel world but this acknowledgment of it felt necessary. "It had been three years, two months and four days for me, from that awful day at Canary Wharf to the afternoon I knocked Mr. Darcy-you on your bum. After that, I'm not sure. Time with you in the TARDIS is a bit..." she trailed off, unsure what to say next.

"Wibbly-wobbly?" he asked with a small smile. 

"Exactly," she replied, grinning back at him.

"I knew you'd get it," the Doctor answered, softly, drawing her into his embrace again. There were so, so many times over the past few years he'd wished to have her by his side, so many times he'd turned to tell her something, to make her laugh, to hold her and attempt to absolve his sins. But she was here now and he was never, ever letting her go.

Rose felt his lips flutter against her neck, gently moving up to caress behind her ear and along her jawline, making her shudder under his loving, tentative kisses. He pulled back minutely to lay a kiss on each cheek, on her nose, on each eyelid and brow, worshiping her reverently and taking in every millimeter of her presence. When his lips finally met hers, they moved together, shifting so both his hands held her face and she mirrored him. The kiss was sweet and tender and both Rose and the Doctor were hit with the memory of the kiss they’d first shared in Rose’s flat, a first kiss in so many ways for them both. With that also came the memory of its immediate escalation and by an unspoken agreement, they both shifted again so Rose was once again straddling his lap, her hands moving to sink into his gorgeous hair and his moving down her back to her bum, pulling her against him in a rhythm now familiar to them both.

Rose swiveled her hips in a surprising and very clever fashion and the Doctor responded first with a whimper and then with shoving his tongue into her mouth. It was Rose’s turn to make a sound of deep appreciation then, but the Doctor was too distracted with his new pastime to gloat over it. The flavour of her exploded in his mouth, this tongue that had always been so desperate to taste her, to savour the sweetness he’d always fancied he could almost remember, it was so vivid in his imagination. The taste of her mouth, however, was not enough and he was very quickly being consumed with a few long favoured fantasies of tasting her elsewhere. 

He heard a thump as Rose’s knee knocked against the book he’d placed on the couch, making it fall to the floor, but he was really too mesmerized by the feeling of her moving against him to care. He shuddered as his first ripple went through him, making him strain even further against his already-tight trousers (why did he have to wear such tight trousers, again?). Taking in a deep breath, he smelled Rose’s arousal surrounding him, the memories of all the times they’d been intertwined and moving against each other for completion fighting for precedence in his mind. Her smell and taste mingled together with the feeling of her suddenly crying out his name in his mind across their link brought forth the memory of teaching her to first communicate like that, of her mouth on him for the very first time and then he suddenly knew exactly what he wanted.

The book and the bond could wait.

She had two up on him, after all.

First he moved his hands up from her arse to tug the jumper over her head, pausing only a moment to marvel at her pert, perfect breasts encased in tantalizing black lace and then he summoned all his strength to push up off the couch, Rose still attached to him to then drop her surprised form back to the cushion, kneeling between her knees in front of her. His mouth immediately went to her breasts, teeth and tongue caressing the creamy skin displayed and making the fabric damp. Instead of working them free, however, he continued down her torso, tongue swirling into her navel as he remembered her doing that first time in her bed. He was equally sure that his smug expression mirrored the one she had worn back then as Rose’s breath quickened under his ministrations.

Keeping his mouth on her stomach, he made quick work of her trainers and then moved his hands up to the button of her trousers, grinning against her skin as Rose raised up her hips to help him shimmy her jeans and knickers off. As his tongue traced Gallifreyan symbols on her hipbone, he really couldn’t help but release the catch on his own trousers and moved his pants aside, letting out a sigh of relief as his straining, rippling erection was freed to lay heavy against his heaving stomach. Rose made another very appreciative, needy sound above him and he glanced up at her. He was nearly blown away with the glassy-eyed, tousled, aroused look of heat Rose was sending down his way.

He moved once again so his hands drew lazy patterns over her hips. “Rose Tyler,” he said, his voice a low, sensual growl against her, his tongue tracing a wandering, teasing path over her stomach. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?”

“No,” she gasped in his mind and he chuckled against her skin. She was right. Why waste a perfectly good moment by speaking out loud when he could be devouring her with his mouth? “How long?” 

“In the current Timeline? Since ‘Run!’ My last body wanted you so badly. And this body...this body was born wanting you, Rose. I just didn’t understand the impulses. Didn’t allow myself to carry through those impulses with you. Had to siphon them off in other, creative ways on my own,” his mind murmured in hers, moving back a fraction and picking up one foot then the other, pressing feather light kisses on the inside of each ankle, moving away from where he knew she wanted him.

“Oh yeah?” she asked, trying to grasp some semblance of coherent thought as his tongue moved on, tracing upward and then back down over and over again. It seemed to her like this conversation was familiar somehow but then she was infinitely distracted by that clever, clever mouth of his and really, who could blame her? 

“Oh yes,” he finished, his projected voice far sexier than should ever be allowed especially when his tongue was doing...oh. Just that...tracing the sensitive inside of her leg and then starting in on an increasingly diminishing circle, honing in toward the spot she wanted him to be and, unless she was completely underestimating his oral fixation, where he wanted to be.

“My Eighth body wished for better taste buds, did you know that, Rose?” he said languidly, purposely transferring his mouth to the neglected thigh without ever touching the temptingly delicious feast in front of him, ignoring her whimper. “Didn’t get them the next time ‘round...probably for the best, anyway. Poor confused, frustrated Ninth me was already driven to distraction around you nearly all the time. I could smell you, Rose - good nose on me back then. And I wanted you so bad. And this body? Born for you. Born of everything I wanted for you and for me. And I wanted to taste this, taste you, all of you. Taste the want, the need, the exquisite torture that is your arousal, Rose.” 

He surprised her then, sucking at the spot he’d been licking, moaning with her out loud before transferring his teeth there, biting and then repeating the action on the other side. Her hips rose sharply off the couch, almost forcing his mouth on her and he groaned, using one hand to push them back down as the other moved to give his aching cock a few good hard tugs, letting a few shuddering ripples of pleasure pass through his body before letting go again. Distracting little minx. This was about her. And about a long, long ago created fantasy of his, favoured by his very fluent imagination and his equally clever right hand.

“Fantasy?” she questioned, having received that thought from the myriad of overwhelming sensual overloads she getting across their link. He really was mesmerized by the taste of her skin on his tongue. 

“Oh yes, Rose. Don’t pretend like those short skirts and tight vest tops weren’t meant to conjure up that sort of thing. And on Ogranix where we stopped for dinner...you didn't wear any knickers,” he chastised, nipping his brand again in mock retaliation, rewarded with another push of her hips against him.

"Didn't think you noticed," Rose groaned to him.

"Oh, I noticed," he replied, darkly. "So did our waiter. Why d’you think I made us skip dessert? Had to keep myself from killing him with me bare hands and shagging you in the middle of the restaurant." His internal voice slipped back into a Northern drawl for a moment, pulled there by the force of that memory and Rose made another delicious sound of encouragement.

He sat up a little farther, moving back up her body, placing feather-light, wet kisses all along her hips and coming to rest at her navel, swirling around it once again in a fashion that reminded her of the first time she went down on him, back when he had long hair and no idea what he was doing. She sent him a flash of that memory, of helping him first discover the wonders of oral sex, and he groaned just as she remembered him doing back then. 

Raising his head from her stomach he chastised out loud, “Quit trying to distract me, Rose Tyler. I believe I was just about to relay a fantasy to you, yeah?” He was looking up at her with his chin resting on her thigh, his hair deliciously tousled by her and his eyes shining.

“Fine, fine,” she said, laughing lightly in his head. “Just get back to doing what you were doing a minute ago.” The delighted, impish grin he gave her before diving back down to settle between her knees sent another surge of love and affection to him across the link. 

“Your wish is my command, milady,” he said, transferring his mouth to her hip bone and sucking lightly there at first, adding more pressure, branding her there too as he mentally spoke. “A little background first, perhaps? Ninth me, poor bloke. All those stored away memories of making love to you rattling about and a half-formed mating bond? I never stood a chance at resisting you and your luscious bottom lip and your wicked tongue in that basement and then later wrestling that arm off you in your mum’s flat, feeling you pressed up against me like that? First hard-on (so I thought) in that body and of course it was for you. Except then it kept happening. I ignored it at first, assumed my body’s reactions were just some odd, temporary response to the difficult regeneration. Not the most stable body I’ve ever had.”

“But gorgeous,” Rose sighed, dreamily, her hands moving from their location locked in his fabulous hair to caress his (decidedly smaller) ears. 

“Oi! No fantasizing about past bodies in bed,” he responded playfully, nipping at her hip then soothing it with his tongue before starting a slow descent down one thigh toward her knee again. 

“Then, just when I had convinced myself that it was all flawed biology, you came out in that bloody Cardiff dress and I was so aroused all I wanted to do was throw you down on that grating and have my way with you right then. Hadn’t even known you forty-eight hours. Took me by surprise, to say the least. I’d never felt that way before, at least not that I could remember. I had to scramble to cover it up. 'For a human', honestly,” he said, rolling his eyes. He felt Rose’s amusement in his head as he focused on tracing Gallifreyan symbols on her kneecap. 

“Oooo....throwing down on the grating. Can we do that sometime?” she asked, giggling, both at the idea and as his tongue found a particularly ticklish spot by her knee.

“We can do any location you want, Rose,” the Doctor growled, focusing on turning that giggle into a groan. Not too hard with Rose’s body keyed up as high it was now. But it was not enough. He was going to have her quivering with need before he gave in and tasted her where he (and she) most wanted. “And we will,” he promised. “I’ve got a list, Rose Tyler. A loooong list. Starting with that service lift in Henrik’s.”

“So, long story short, Ninth me eventually started getting a lot of mileage out of his right hand. Started taking a lot more showers. Apparently learned a lot from Eighth me and his ‘golden goddess’,” he thought to her, smirking. He’d have to explain that last bit to her but for now, Rose simply gasped as he sent her his fantasies from both bodies, image after graphic image from nearly every location they’d ever been (planets, space stations and, of course, a good many prisons) and every room on the TARDIS she had ever seen. And a grand number of those she hadn’t. Why the hell did they have a snooker room? Then she gasped again as his hands eased her legs further apart and he began to run his tongue up and down the insides of her thighs, tracing the motion with his long, nimble fingers.

“The Toaster room, really?” she panted, trying to control the upward thrust of her hips, grabbing at the last fantasy to flash by. The sight of his wild brown hair moving up and down between her thighs was even more erotic than this sight of his really great hair was normally, which was saying a lot. She needed to grasp some semblance of control or this was going to be over embarrassingly quick and he was going to be absolutely insufferable. He smirked at her as he caught that thought and then responded, turning his head to nuzzle her thigh.

“Really,” he affirmed, stopping a second to dwell on that particular, inebriated fantasy. “And I fully intend to make that one happen. That’s been a favourite of mine for years.” 

“So, skipping ahead past the immense amount of torture you put my poor leather-coated soul through, post-Bad Wolf, new, new, virgin-y Doctor body, fresh from a sword fight in my jimjams, determined to do better and not subject one wonderful Rose Tyler to being the object of an ancient alien’s filthy fantasies,” he continued, delighted with all the alliteration. He certainly was good with language this go ‘round, “I valiantly decided I would give it up and not do it anymore.” Which had nothing to do with the fact that he wasn’t entirely sure that she would even agree to travel with him when he had up and changed bodies without telling her, much less gave him any reason to even dream of scenarios like that with her anymore. Or the fact that he had experienced what it was like to have to live without her (even if it had only been a blessedly short separation) and he wasn’t sure how he was ever going to be able to let her go. He’d thought maybe it would be easier just to push her away before it got any further...and yet had known in his hearts that he would never be able to let her go, that she simply belonged with him, that she always had and that she always would.

Shaking off those dark memories of doubts and troubles, he refocused on the quivering, wanton Rose in front of him. His fingers reached forward and ran lightly over the outer edges of her sex, delighting in the wetness they found there and in her squirming. “Wasn’t easy. As I said before, this body was born to be with you, Rose. Born to touch you, to fit you, to want you in every way possible. These fingers were born to caress you, he murmured as they did just that. This tongue was born to taste you, he continued, drawing his fingers back to his mouth and sucking on them, his eyes locked on hers the whole time. Managed to make it through the first chaste night but that was mostly because I was unconscious at the time. And because your mother was right outside the door. Which brings us to the second night. New suit, you smiling at me, Christmas dinner, taking my hand outside. I thought I could make it through all of that...even when you put your hand on my knee and squeezed my thigh during dessert and I had to sit at the dinner table with a napkin in my lap for the next half an hour listening to Mr. Mickey rattle on about Chelsea because I was half-hard and that wasn’t even the first time.” 

He was a lot more than half-hard now. He was fully, almost painfully, wonderfully aroused and rippling heavily already from the waves of arousal reflecting off Rose into him. Rassilon praise this handy oral fixation of his. This time he joined Rose in moaning as he moved forward between her legs, pulling her to the very edge of the couch and nudged her with his nose, spreading her wide with his fingers, breathing in her beautiful scent. 

Drawing back just slightly he made her curse him darkly (curses she had learned from Ninth him, no doubt) as he blew cool air gently on her, a curse that quickly turned into a prolonged groan. “I stayed as long as I could that night, watching those claymation films with you, just hoping you’d let me hold you like you used to, settling for taking your hand, blanket on my lap, fighting my arousal. Then it was time for me go back to the TARDIS for the night. Your mother insisted that you stay in your old room for the night and you didn’t argue. Had me worried, that did,” he paused and looked up her body to lock eyes. Rose felt his wave of uncertainty from back then and his desperate worry from back then that she might not come with him, that she might stay and leave him behind. She combed her hands gently through his hair and he relaxed, letting her push those memories away. He accepted her comfort and then moved back to the gorgeous task he had at hand. “You walked me to the door. And do you remember what happened then, Rose? Hmm? Do you?” he prodded out loud, his breath ghosting over her as she didn’t answer, instead moaning as he moved his fingers from her curls to plunge inside her then drawing them out and licking them clean slowly, knowing she was watching him closely. 

“Mistletoe,” she gasped out, watching his long, nimble fingers, shining with her wetness, disappearing into that clever mouth of his. 

“That’s right,” he responded in her mind again, surprising and rewarding her with a long slow lick that immediately made her hands fly to the back of his head, scraping his scalp and combing through his really great hair, holding him to her.

“You kissed me, Rose Tyler, under that mistletoe. Just a little kiss. Just off my mouth. Just enough for me to get a taste of you on my lips, which became a taste of you on my tongue. This long, agile, glorious tongue,” he continued, emphasizing each word with swirls and thrusts, writing his name and hers in Gallifreyan, searching deep for the source of her sweetness and lapping up everything she offered him. 

Rose was a completely lost in his wonderful ministrations and his confession of fantasies. Oh, God. How many times had she fantasized about him using that errant tongue for this purpose as well? In response to that thought, he doubled his efforts and she barely had a chance for a coherent thought for the next few minutes. Sensing her impending orgasm, the Doctor pulled back slightly, suddenly ignoring the sensitive bundle of nerves he had been working on so diligently, bringing her back down. 

She cried out in frustration and tried to remember what they’d been talking about. He wasn’t ready to let her crest yet, easing up and pushing her mentally back to their conversation. She should have known that sex with this Doctor would be all about talking. He withdrew his tongue and looked as mock-offended as he could manage with his mouth all wet and shiny and nipped her thigh in reprimand to that thought and she laughed, followed by his laughing happy noise as well.

Christmas. Mistletoe. She hadn’t meant to kiss him on the lips. After her mum had badgered them, blushing furiously, into kissing, she’d leaned up to kiss his cheek and he’d turned his head at the last second and their lips had briefly, so briefly, touched. That kiss had turned into a flurry of frantic motions as she blushed and stammered and he became a whirlwind of pinstripes out the door. She’d been mortified both of “betraying” his past self and frightened that his quick exit had meant he would leave her behind over an errant brush of her mouth.

His mind reached out and caressed hers in a more gentle fashion, not lust and arousal filled as it had been, like running a light hand over her cheek and he rested his chin on her hip a moment, looking up at her with big, brown eyes. “Never, Rose. I never would have left you like that. I will never leave you like that,” he said, both touched by her loyalty to his previous self and sorry he had caused her that strife. 

She gave him a small, tentative smile and, satisfied, he focused once again back on her. “I had to hurry out because I suddenly had an extremely large, very, er, hard problem. All my noble, chaste intentions, chucked right out the window with just one teeny-tiny taste of the majesty of my Rose,” he hummed against her, thrusting his tongue back in deeply, mimicking the motion of thrusting with his body and eliciting gorgeous, throaty noises from her. “Didn’t even make it out of the console room,” he admitted, increasing both his tempo and ferocity, adding his fingers with his tongue. “Brand new trousers and there they went, right on the floor. Had my cock out by the time I reached the jump seat,” he continued, watching carefully for the flare of arousal at his vulgar words that coursed through Rose’s mind. She liked that, then. He was awfully good with words this time. His hips were jerking rhythmically as well, seeking some friction. The hand not currently working inside Rose slipped down to circle his erection, stroking and squeezing to match his vicious pace. He was rippling quickly, almost constantly, close, so close with her.

Adding the visual memory of him dashing through the console room shedding his clothing in desperation for completion to the physical and mental sensations flying between the two of them, he felt Rose’s arousal reach an almost painful high, taking his with it. His tongue and fingers and hips were working madly now and his thoughts were getting harder to keep sensible. “I was hard, so hard, just imagining what it would be like to taste you, every part of you. To go right back upstairs, drag you to the TARDIS and go down on you right there in the console room. Imagining your taste, your scent, your sounds, your legs wrapped around my head. Wanted you so bad. So, so bad. I’d have taken you right there on the jumpseat where I was fucking my hand, imagining I was on my knees in front of you, worshiping you. I’dve used my tongue and teeth and fingers and then my cock to make you come, to make you explode. Over and over again. Just. Like. This.” At his words, she keened again and held him almost painfully tight between her thighs. Suddenly he none too gently nipped her sensitive clit with his teeth and she was screaming his name just like he imagined she would and three climaxes, Rose’s, his fantasy Rose and new, new Doctor alone in the console room from his memory ripped through them, shockwave after shockwave of pure pleasure rioting across the link. He cried out, giving himself one more good tug and then scrambled with his other hand to grab the closest thing to cover up with (Rose’s discarded jumper, by coincidence) as he came so hard he was sure he saw stars, the entire Medusa cascade probably.

He collapsed back onto his heels and Rose slumped back onto the couch and neither of them spoke for a few long, breathless moments. It was Rose’s giggling and the warmth of her amusement creeping across the bond that made him finally open his eyes and look up at her. She was still deliciously flushed (although some of it might have been embarrassment now) and shirtless, her hair a complete disarray. He thought he probably looked much the same, his trousers still open and Rose’s soiled jumper still clutched in his hand. One look at her mirth-filled face and he began to laugh as well, laughing as he had not in years, not since he’d lost her.

They both laughed themselves breathless once again, one setting the other back off as he or she gained composure. “Well, that was brilliant,” Rose said, finally, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Unexpected, but brilliant.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” the Doctor answered, preening and moving back up to sit beside her once again on the couch, handing her the jeans and knickers and dropping her jumper back to the floor. He tucked himself away and picked the book back up off the floor as Rose put her trousers back on. “And that was just the first time! Imagine how good it’ll be once I’ve had some practice, Rose!” he exclaimed, waggling his eyebrows at her. “And I’m going to insist on a lot of practice.” He sent her several images of places he’d very much like to practice with her. With the pain of his memories in the back of his mind and his joy at being with her still spilling over from that very satisfying release, he wasn’t quite ready yet to go back to being worried about their bond.

There was a hefty spike of lust across the bond and Rose collapsed back on the couch once more, groaning. “Stop it, stop it,” she laughed, putting a hand over her face. “We’re never going to read any of that dusty old book if you keep doing that.” 

“I thought that you were very much in favour of what I was doing instead of reading my ‘dusty, old book’,” he teased, leaning forward and leering at her unclothed chest a moment. “In fact, there are a number of other parts of you that I feel I’ve not yet been properly reacquainted,” the Doctor growled, moving forward to let his breath puff gently across the tops of her breasts, delighting in keeping her off kilter.

Rose looked down, surprised a moment at her lack of shirt before flushing again. “Oh, believe me, I’m looking forward to that as well,” she replied and then flipped the tables on him by reaching forward and beginning to unbutton his oxford, his eyes rolling back as her fingers danced across his hearts, her warmth burning him despite the thin tshirt between them. “But the next time we do this, Time Lord,” she whispered, her mouth brushing against his ear as she tugged his undone shirt from his waistband and he shuddered, knowing he’d officially lost this round and not minding one bit. “We’re both going to be completely naked,” she paused, sliding the shirt off his shoulders and helping him get his wrists through it, ”you’re going to have that glorious cock of yours inside me,” she paused again and he whimpered as her hand glanced down to his lap where he was already getting hard again. “And the two of us are going to come so hard they’ll hear it on Raxacoricofallapatorius,” she finished, echoing her words to him from so, so long ago that word just as bafflingly arousing as it had been back then (perhaps even more baffling now that he knew exactly where it was and what came off it).

Before he could reach for her again, she triumphantly stood up, taking his oxford with her and donning it herself with a flourish. He gaped at her, as in awe of her now as he had been all those years ago and she grinned at him, first reveling in her win in their little game of seduction and then more softly as she remembered their time together then, too. 

“You, read that book,” Rose ordered playfully, pointing at him with her tongue in her teeth. “I’m going to find something to keep me busy.”

Panic surged through him and he knew that he hadn’t hidden it well when Rose spun back to him immediately. “Don’t worry. M’not leaving the library. I’m just going to find a book to read or something. I’ll be right here,” she added gently.

He relaxed incrementally and cracked open the ancient Gallifreyan book, some of his anxiety creeping back in. The sooner he figured this out, the sooner they could move forward. He took a deep breath and began to read.


	3. Ten III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, work's crazy, family's crazy and life's crazy but I'm back and hopefully I'll be able to remain that way. I apologize profusely for the LONG wait and thank everyone's that's stuck around for this story and series.

Rose wandered over to a set of shelves in the library, running her hands over the glossy spines of the books and simply letting herself revel in the effect of being on the TARDIS again. Her fingers traced absently over book after book, finally coming to rest on a slim collection of Dickens’ short stories, which drew a soft smile. The Doctor had read this to her, first when he’d been leather and gruffness, putting on a show after not-Naples, and then again when he’d been new and pinstriped, trying desperately to show her that he was the same man, that he was still her Doctor, despite the plethora of hair and the unending gob. 

She plucked the book from the shelf and moved back to the couch where the Doctor (and he always was her Doctor, no matter the wardrobe or the hair) was, unable to stay far from him for too long. Settling on the floor with her back to the couch, she wrapped an arm around his leg, resting her cheek against the soft wool of his suit-clad knee. As she began reading, her thumb absently caressed his ankle and his manly, hairy shin, his cool skin warming under her touch.

The Doctor hummed out a sigh a relief when Rose moved back over and touched him again and his left hand automatically went to the top of her head. He hadn’t gotten far in the book with her on the opposite side of the room, his eyes continually darting up to follow her movements, his body calling out to him to bring her back, to keep her near, to keep her with him. The logical part of his brain attributed this frantic dependency to her long absence and his fear that this would all turn out to be a cruel dream, but he also knew that this unquenchable desperation for her company ran deeper than just that (although that slight caress she was giving his ankle was quite distracting). He wouldn’t previously have ever thought his ankle to be an erogenous zone but Rose was, as ever, continually proving him wrong.

Since Rose’s reappearance after her interactions with his past, her presence now felt like a visceral, fundamental requisite to his existence. He’d always wanted her beside him, almost since the moment he met her, and he had loved her practically that long as well (even if he had been loathe to admit it), but those feelings were so much more now. The unfinished bond between them was singing with the need, pining for completion, overwhelming in its demand to filled. Sighing, he forcibly drew his attention away from Rose’s warmth back to the book. He needed to decipher what exactly was happening to them before it inevitably went further. Reading the little his book had to offer, the Doctor discovered everything he could about the mating bonds he had vaguely remembered from his dusty old Academy days.

Rose, for her part, was trying to focus on trains and ghosts but the feel of the Doctor so close beside her was intoxicating, almost irresistible. Had she always been this fixated on him? Her attraction to him and her love for him had grown every day she’d spent with him since ‘Run!’, but this was an altogether new type of sensation. Of course, there was only so much time one could pretend to read gossip rags while actually staring at Time Lord’s bums so she’d had a number of fantasies, human hormones and all. But now, all she could think about was having his skin next to hers, legs tangled in sheets and hands fisted in hair. She had always wanted him (in any body, it seemed) but this fixation was getting ridiculous. Ol’ Charley boy was doing nothing to hold her attention at the moment. Finally, she set her book down and pressed her free hand against the floor, tentatively reaching out to feel the TARDIS, asking the ship for a distraction so she didn’t just jump her Time Lord’s bones right then.

The brilliant gold of the TARDIS seemed amused with her a moment, reveling in Rose’s happiness and then the golden presence flew to her mind, rushing in as though she had just been waiting for Rose to initiate contact like this. The dizzying flood of the immense new presence was overwhelming at first, making Rose flinch and close her eyes. At her reaction, the surge immediately slowed and glowed an apologetic yellow mixed with warm pink love and orange excitement. It made Rose realize that the TARDIS had missed her too, that she was needed not only by the pilot, but also by the Timeship herself. Rose marveled at the feeling of interacting with the TARDIS like this, shyly sending back a wave of gratitude and love to the ship. 

She had always felt close to the TARDIS but now, like her bond with the Doctor, everything felt much richer, much more vivid, since she had returned from the parallel universe. She could feel the TARDIS’ beaming joy at her attempt at deeper communication and the ship was practically vibrating with excitement. Rose was about to try the communication again when suddenly the cobalt blue of the Doctor’s mind shot through her, frantic and confused, desperately enveloping her and mentally yanking her back from the TARDIS’ affronted glow.

Dazed a moment from sudden disconnect, Rose’s eyes shot open to find a wide-eyed, terrified Doctor kneeling in front of her, his hands on her head, thumbs pressed to her temples, book discarded carelessly on the floor. He was shaking and his chest was frantically heaving despite his respiratory bypass and his expression was wild. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, confused and frightened by his fear. There was nothing in the TARDIS that could harm them, surely?

“What do you mean ‘what’s wrong’?” the Doctor snapped as his eyes darted across her face and the dark, desperate navy stripes in his mind pulsed with anxiety, his voice high and tight. “That was - you were - I thought -What the hell was that?”

“What was what?” Rose asked, confused. All she’d been doing was sitting here, speaking with the TARDIS.

“You, and, and...you!” the Doctor sputtered, his hands falling from her temples to his sides as he sat back on his heels, watching her warily, his frenzied distress still pounding on the edges of her consciousness. “I was just getting ready to tell you something about the bond but then I looked down and you were all glow-y and doing something odd with your mind and -.”

“Hang on...’glowy’?” Rose asked, frowning at him.

“Yes, glow-y! Golden glow-y. Bad Wolf glow-y, Rose!” he growled and she could feel his agitation and the lingering residual fear from the Game Station shot through her from him. He was re-living her ‘death’ then and was even more terrified of it now. “I thought I was losing you,” he finished, quietly, his voice little more than a whimper.

“It’s ok,” she soothed. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here now and I’m staying. Stuck with me, remember?”

That comment earned her a small, wan smile without much feeling behind it, but it was a smile nonetheless. His eyes still burned with worry and concern. “What were you doing?”

“The TARDIS and I were just having a chat,” she responded, reaching out to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, trying to stop his agitated fidgeting. “A bit of girl talk, I guess.”

“What?” he asked, gaping at her. The old girl had always been oddly fond of Rose and he’d occasionally felt her communicating in a light, rather vague telepathic connection with the TARDIS, particularly after the Game Station incident, but nothing like that had ever happened before. He would have remembered. And fixed it.

At that last comment, the TARDIS mentally poked him, irritably. Apparently she didn’t think anything needed fixed.

“You heard me. I was talking to the TARDIS. Remember? You noticed it when we moved her to my flat in Pete’s World.” His gaze darkened further. He had noticed it back then and, at the time, it had been an fascinating anomaly. Now, however, it seemed like a dangerous risk. Unheeded, Rose continued, “The connection has been a lot more intense since I met you back then and even more since I got back to you, this you, but I don’t think it’s anything to be worried about -”

“Medbay. Now,” he said shortly, pulling Rose up with him and scooping the Gallifreyan book into his hands

“Doctor, I’m fine,” Rose tried, struggling to keep up with him as he set off through the hall at a very fast pace. “Anyway, if something was wrong, the TARDIS would have -”

He came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the corridor, causing Rose to crash into his back. “Rose, please,” the Doctor said, his free hand coming up to cup the side of her face like the man he used to be. “Just let me...I just...I need to know. I can’t be without you. Not again. Let me do this.”

“Ok,” Rose answered, reaching out with her mind, trying to console him. They both shivered at the contact, slight though it was. “Whatever you need, Doctor.” 

He looked at her closely, his mind grasping at the edges of hers, held back by the thinnest of threads, greedy for the contact he had been denied for so, so long. The desperately hidden whisper of madness in his soul howled threateningly at the memory of her loss, that narrow crack in his sanity which had always softly taunted Rose from the depths of his eyes, whether blue or brown, widened in his vulnerability. 

Rose wondered briefly what he would have become if she hadn’t returned and if Donna and Martha hadn’t been there for him. Would his cracked and damaged psyche have broken? Would that whisper of madness become a roar, drowning out the good man she knew for the madman he could become? Terrifyingly, the TARDIS flashed her dark red and orange images of fire and death and she knew the answer. She shivered at the knowledge that she held even a modicum of control over such a powerful man. As she stared back into him, unflinching at even this image of him at his darkest, his gaze shifted, the shadows quickly fading into bold desire. The Doctor pulled her into a fierce kiss, his lips claiming hers, as though trying to prove to himself that she was here and that she wouldn’t leave him. 

A moment later, he had her pressed against one of the coral walls, his arms wrapped so tightly around her that he was practically touching his own ribs, as if holding her this close to him would keep her from ever being hurt again, as if he could make her a part of himself and they would never have to be alone again. The Gallifreyan book in his hand dug into her and his lips on hers were harsh, almost punishing, but she didn’t seem to mind. His hips shoved forward into hers and he growled as she whimpered, both of them lost in the sensation. 

“Doctor, we can’t. Not here. Not like this,” Rose managed to gasp out, as his mouth moved from hers to her neck, biting and sucking at the skin exposed there from the open collar of his oxford. “You said -” 

“Mine,” he interrupted, in Gallifreyan, and ground his hips against her harder, perfect friction as she moaned. 

“Yours,” she answered in English and he rewarded her with another deep kiss. His mind was pouring over hers now, reaching out with eager, avid tendrils, twining her ardent mind around his. Soon, there would be no going back. Not that he ever wanted to go back. Or that she did.

Suddenly the TARDIS intruded, prodding both of them and breaking the intoxicating connection. The abrupt abeyance made them feel as though they were teenagers having just been interrupted by an angry mum. The Doctor sprang away from Rose, looking deliciously disheveled and guilty, lips swollen and panting. She imagined she made a very similar lusty picture and flushed, both with embarrassment and arousal. The TARDIS seemed to smirk at them and then flashed the corridor lights, making the Medbay door glow brighter.

“Apparently we’re wanted elsewhere,” the Doctor said with a wry grin, letting Rose watch as he adjusted his trousers slightly and then reached out to take her hand with a wink. “But we’re coming back to corridor sex sometime soon. It’s on the list.”

“Sounds good to me,” she laughed, gladly taking his hand and following him into the Medbay. She hopped up onto one of the tables and contemplated the last time she had been in here. For her, it was only a few days ago, after his regeneration into his ninth body. For him…

While they had been out shopping for a gift for Jackie, not long after Olympic flames and not-blue buckets and just before red rocks and idealistic promises, Rose had scraped her hand on a stone block. The Doctor, who, despite his babbling assurances otherwise, had been extremely protective and clingy after that night under the London stars, had immediately rushed her back to the Medbay for treatment, barely leaving Rose enough time to toss a few coins to the vendor for Jackie’s bazoolium. 

He had stood between her knees and lovingly, tenderly, healed the small scratch on her hand, muttering fondly about her ridiculous talent for getting into trouble no matter where they went. Rose had been able to feel the undercurrent of his worry then and their relationship had teetered so closely to the edge of giving in that night. He had almost kissed her, she knew he had, but at the last moment he had shaken his head sadly and jumped away, burying the moment under a shower of meaningless words.

“I wanted to kiss you so badly,” the Doctor murmured, fiddling with an instrument in his hands, apparently re-living that moment as well. “I nearly did. I nearly told you everything but it just...it seemed so hard. If I’d only known back then...” He took a deep breath through his nose and then pointed the wand-like thing in his hands toward her. “You, lay back and hold still.”

“It’s ‘lay back and think of England’, Doctor,” she teased, but did as he instructed. 

“Oh, when we get to that, I can assure you won’t even be able to spell England,” the Doctor responded, cheekily and Rose squeaked in surprise as one of his cold hands unexpectedly snuck its way under her shirt to give her hip a quick squeeze. 

“Promises, promises,” Rose continued, closing her eyes against the bright blue light that was suddenly shining above her from yet another instrument of his. “What’re you looking for, anyway?” she asked, patiently lifting her right arm when he told her to do so and then yelping in surprise as he pricked her finger and drew a blood sample. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, bringing the digit up to his lips for a quick kiss.

“Does that help?” Rose queried, raising an eyebrow at him and shifting up onto her elbows as he moved away. 

“Yep,” he replied absently, taking his glasses out and slipping them on as he stared at a monitor. “There are antibodies in my saliva that actually -” he trailed off and Rose sat up a little straighter at his unusual silence.

“Doctor, what is it?” Rose asked, swinging her legs off the side of the bed. He didn’t respond, just muttered something to himself and tapped madly at another monitor. Rose frowned and crossed the room to stand beside him. “What?” she tried again.

The Doctor turned to her, his eyes wide, examining her once again like she was the most mysterious thing he’d ever seen in his thousand-plus years. She’d seen that expression now on three faces and it astounded her every time. “Rose, look at this,” he said, indicating to the first screen. “What do you see?”

“A human DNA strand?” Rose answered, squinting at the screen, harkening back to her hazy secondary school biology days.

“Yes,” the Doctor replied. “Yours, in fact, from when you first started travelling with me.”

“You’ve got my DNA on file?” she asked, sounding surprised. 

“ ‘Course I do,” he scoffed, sounding distinctly Northern a moment. “Never had a companion who got into as much trouble as you. The TARDIS and I did a full work up on you right after you managed to get that sunburn on your first trip.”

“Your fault,” Rose sing-songed at him. “Someone decided taking me to see my planet get roasted would be an excellent first date.”

He sniffed slightly. “Might of had a rather skewed sense of romance back then.” 

“Or no sense of romance back then,” she laughed.

“Oi! I took you to an entire planet made of beautiful, sparkling ice waves,” he retorted. “And I made you hot chocolate after that!”

“You’re right, you did,” she smiled back, leaning up to give him a quick peck on the cheek to mollify him, deciding not to remind him that the hot chocolate had come nearly four days later and that Jack had actually made it. “Back to your mysterious monitors?”

“Right,” he nodded. “This is an image of my TNA,” the Doctor continued, pulling up another image, this time of a three stranded model. “The triple-helix is what allows Time Lords to regenerate among other - anyway, not important right now.” 

“Ok,” Rose answered, slowly. “And?”

“And now,” the Doctor said, turning the final monitor around to face her, “look at this.”

Rose gasped, staring at the image on his monitor. It was another double-helixed sample but there was the beginning of third strand, which seemed to be constantly evolving, covering almost half of the structure. However, instead of being a similar colour to the other two, the new strand was a shining, dazzling gold, almost difficult to look at in its brilliance. It reminded Rose of something she couldn’t quite place, something with the tang of Time in the air and dust on the wind, something that echoed the words Bad Wolf to her. Shaking her head to clear it, she looked back over at the Doctor. She didn’t need to ask, but he answered nonetheless. “Yours,” he confirmed quietly.

“But, how - I don’t, we, I was in here since Bad Wolf,” Rose stammered, gesturing around at the MedBay. “That headache after New New York, bruises on my wrists from those manacles at Torchwood Manor, a scratch from that Krillitane, and on that space station -”

“Stop, Rose,” the Doctor interrupted harshly and the pain in his voice kept Rose from retorting. “Let’s skip over the listing of all the times I failed you over the last year we were together, shall we?”

“Doctor, that’s not what I meant,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. 

He took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled through his nose. “I know,” he answered, softly. “But believe me, I’ve relived every single one of those moments the last few years as well. Every bump, every scratch, every time I nearly lost you and the one time that I did. But you’re right. We were in here, much more often than I would have liked, and these scanners never once showed me anything like that. To be honest Rose, I’ve never seen anything like it in my whole life.”

“D’you think it’s only been like that since I came back? I was in the MedBay with the last you right after I woke you up from your regeneration coma and you didn’t say anything about it then, either.”

“No, I don’t think so,” the Doctor answered, frowning slightly and letting go of Rose’s hand to ruffle his hair. “It looks like it’s been evolving for a while now. I do remember thinking that your scans didn’t seem quite right back then but I was frantic with worry and more than a bit mad and the TARDIS wasn’t being very helpful and - ooo. You. Oh, you tricky girl. This is all your doing isn’t it?”

“Doctor?” Rose prodded as he stared up at the ceiling. 

“You hid this from me, didn’t you?” he continued out loud, sounding angry and confused. “Of course I didn’t see it on the scanners because who controls my scanners? You do! But why? Why keep it a secret? If I’d known - oh, oh that’s it, isn’t it? Clever girl. If I’d known that there could have been a future for us like this, I would never have hesitated. Well, maybe I would have, but I’d have gotten over it. We could have bonded back then, don’t you see, Rose?” The Doctor spun back toward her. “But…”

“If we’d bonded back then, your past couldn’t have happened like it was supposed to,” she finished for him as he walked closer to her, leaning in. 

“Exactly! And your telepathy, Rose. She must have been keeping a tight lid on that too, communicating just enough to practice with you but not enough that I would notice. And then when we were separated, without her to keep it in control over in that parallel universe, it would have developed on its own, enough to fascinate my younger self but not enough to confuse or hurt you. Still doesn’t quite explain the colours thing you talked about, or what, exactly, that gold stuff is but we can study that more later...” he trailed off a moment, then grinning hugely, he picked her up and twirled her around, laughing. “Ha! I have the most brilliant timeship in the universe!”

“You have the only timeship in the universe,” Rose giggled, sliding down his body and keeping her hands around his neck. 

“True,” he replied, snuggling down into her embrace and fitting his nose into the crook of her neck. “I also have the most brilliant Rose in the universe,” the Doctor continued, making his little happy noise and pressing against her tightly, rhymically drawing her against him in a way that was just on the edge of erotic, especially as his right hand crept up her shirt and his thumb grazed her nipple. As Rose started to get mesmerized by the feel of his body against hers again and his lips against her neck, she saw his open book sitting on one of the exam beds.

“Ready to talk about the bond, then?” she asked, reluctantly reigning her hormones back in and pulling back slightly.

The Doctor looked a bit dazed for a moment, and then shook his head. “Right, bond. Right, I’ll just, ah, go stand over there. On the other side of the breast. Bed! On the other side of the bed. Away from your breasts. YOU! Away from you. Not that I want to be away from you,” he stammered quickly, even as he retreated. “Never. I never want to be away from you again. But, ah -”

“It’s ok, Doctor,” Rose laughed, wondering if his next body would act like a blushing virgin before they had sex for the first time, too. A brief flash of royal blue accompanied by a wave of heat and a fleeting thought of magic hands shot through her, gone before she could even process that it had been there at all. 

He cleared his throat and tapped the book in front of him. “From what I can tell from this book, and there’s not much there, this bond of ours is operating on two different levels,” he began.

“Physical and emotional?” Rose asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Yes, actually,” he replied, eyeing her oddly. “The physical aspects are part of a mating bond. I believe my eighth and ninth selves mentioned to you that part of Gallifreyan history, claiming and such. Time Lords supposedly put those urges aside a long, long time ago but I was always a bit of a rebel and they were always a bit of blowhards. And now that there aren’t any others left…” he trailed. “It shouldn’t have happened anyway, not with differences between our species and lifespans and mental acuity, but our lives are so tangled together, Rose, I don’t even know where to begin. Everything about us seems to go in this complicated circle...and I’m not sure how it got that way.”

“Did I do this?” Rose asked, quietly. “When I was Bad Wolf? I don’t remember much but, if I had all that power…”

“I’m not sure, Rose,” he answered, honestly. “But I could have done it as well...I held that power, too and all I could think about then was you. And the TARDIS...I’m not sure where she plays into all this. Maybe we all did it together. But it doesn’t matter. We’re here and I wouldn’t change a single thing about any of this.”

“Yeah?” Rose said, watching him carefully as he moved back to her, leaning up against the exam table and taking her hand.

“Yes,” he replied. “I think the mating bond is a large part of what’s driving this physical need. Practically all I can think about right now is throwing you down on this table and shagging you until neither one of us can stand.” His eyes widened as that came pouring out. “See?” he said taking a deep breath and flushing brightly. “It wants to be completed and we haven’t finished it yet.”

“And the emotional part?” Rose asked, her own breathing a little ragged in the face of the heated look he was giving her.

“Walk with me?” the Doctor said, quietly, tugging gently on her hand and leading her out of the MedBay. They walked through the corridors until he led her out the doors of the TARDIS to the rocky, red wilderness outside. He led her over to large, flat rock and the two of them sat quietly another moment, watching the strange, flying inhabitants of the planet soar overhead. “Didn’t want to talk about this in the MedBay. Too many bad memories. But I want to do this right. And right doesn’t start with a frantic shag on an uncomfortable table.”

“I read through that whole book, Rose, thinking that what I saw there couldn’t possibly be right. A mating bond? A biological imperative? A useless reproductive urge from a bygone era? It didn’t seem like enough. That’s not us. I don’t just want you physically, Rose. It’s never just been that, as beautiful and wonderful and sexy as you are.” He squeezed her hand and let his thumb caress her wrist, staring ahead. 

“And then I saw a footnote, an asterisk down at the very bottom of a page, shoved away like it was something to be ashamed of, even more embarrassing than the physical urges the Time Lords tried so hard to pretend like they never had.” He paused and took a deep breath, his large, dark eyes swinging over to meet Rose’s. “A mating bond backed with mutual feelings of dedication and respect and affection could be more, so much more, terrifyingly more. And that frightened them so much, Rose. It frightened me, too. They used a bunch of fancy, meaningless words, but in the end, it was about love.” 

Her breath caught in her chest and he shifted to one knee in front of her. “I’d like to say that I’m not scared anymore, Rose, but I am. I probably always will be. I’m scared of losing you and I’m scared of hurting you. I’m scared of how much power you have over me and what the universe might try to do to us because of it. But I’m not scared of loving you, not anymore.” He stopped and took a deep breath, tears shining in his eyes and in hers. 

“It’s called a marriage bond, Rose. I’ve spent the last five years wishing and dreaming and regretting and I want to do this right, for you and for me. I love you, Rose Tyler, with all that I am, all that I was and all that I ever will be. Will you become my bondmate? My life partner? My wife?”

“Yes,” she whispered and his answering smile lit up the landscape even as dusk began to fall around them. “Yes, absolutely, yes.”

He leaned up and kissed her then, cradling her jaw in his hand. They certainly had a lot more to discuss and to plan and to prepare for, but for now, this was enough.


	4. Ten IV

They sat outside, chatting quietly together until the twin suns began to set, chilling the air around them. Hand in hand, the Doctor and Rose walked back into the console room, pausing as Rose hopped up onto the jumpseat and the Doctor stopped in front of her, still holding her hands. Nudging her legs apart, he moved to stand between them, kissing her softly before happily exhaling . “Always wanted to do that,” he said, nuzzling his nose against hers and smiling against her skin.

“Is that all you wanted to do?” Rose queried cheekily, lifting one leg up to pull him against her tighter, which made him squeak into her mouth.

“Weeellll, maybe not all I wanted,” he laughed, kissing her gleefully again.

“So, what happens now?” Rose asked, eventually, letting her leg drop from his waist so they could both regain some semblance of equilibrium (and so she could regain her breath).

Coughing slightly, the Doctor looked down at her collarbone, lingering on the marks made by his previous self, before returning his tentative gaze to her eyes. “We get married,” he said, joy and trepidation fighting one another for dominance in his dark eyes. 

He must have found something comforting in her expression or in her mind, because the joy quickly took over, lighting up his face with all the happiness she remembered from their wild adventures together. Rose threw her arms around him and pulled him into an impromptu embrace, just hugging him to hug him. After a moment, he pulled back, blushing delightfully and shifting his hips against hers slightly, his smile growing wider as her breath sped up again. 

“I don’t think either of us are going to be able to ignore the bond much longer. Plus, it’s about time I made an honest woman out of you, Rose Tyler,” he grinned tapping her on the nose.

Rose laughed, thinking of her parallel father. “That’s what Pete told me, you know. Before we left the mansion, right after he hugged me? An ‘honest woman’, those were his exact words.”

The Doctor nodded, smiling as he remembered overhearing that small shared joke between father and daughter. He and Rose both sobered at the memory, thinking now about the family Rose would never see again. “I’m sorry your mum won’t be there to see us get married, Rose,” he said, moving his hand up to her cheek. 

Rose sniffed and he felt her head move slightly in his grip. “It’s all right,” she replied, finally. “I think she had us figured out long before we did. She always said we’d end up ‘getting hitched’, although she usually had a load of other stuff to say, too...mostly ‘bout you having tentacles and being some sort of alien sex-maniac.”

The Doctor snorted and he and Rose chuckled together, despite the moment. He knew Jackie had always had very strong opinions based on her (absolutely correct) motherly perceptions of his intentions and feelings toward her daughter. Their mutual irritability at one another had tempered with his new personality and he’d always wondered if Rose had influenced his ability to get along with Jackie during his regeneration or if he had instinctively altered that part of himself too, trying his best to become the man that Rose deserved.

Frowning, he thought through the few marriage ceremonies he had attended on Earth (mostly by accident). It was human tradition, wasn’t it, to be surrounded by friends and family in the matrimonial celebration? He wished he could fulfill her every desire for this ceremony but her family couldn’t be there and he blamed himself. Jackie and, by extension, Mickey had become family to him when he’d had no one except Rose in the aftermath of the Time War. It’d been laughable to him in his ninth form that a woman nearly a millenium younger than him would ever dream of mothering him, but when he’d regenerated, he found the idea less and less abhorrent and more and more lovely. He would have been honoured to stand in front of Jackie Tyler and marry her daughter...and now none of them would get the chance to do that together. Rose felt his wave of regret and sorrow pass through her and leaned into his hand, her own grief flaring as well. 

“Is...is there anyone else you want to be there, Rose? We’ll need a witness, at the very least, and -”

“No, Doctor,” Rose interrupted, gently, seeing his guilt building once again. “My gran passed on not long before that mess with the Torchwood ‘ghosts’, remember? And I hadn’t really spoken to any of my other mates for a while. None of them would understand all of this, anyway.” She paused a moment, smiling sadly as she imagined how she would try to explain her face-changing, thousand-plus year old, alien fiancé and their bigger-on-the-inside Time and space ship to some of her former friends.

Shaking her head, she continued, “‘sides, I’m technically dead to them now, right? That’s what you said.” Peering up at him, she saw him cringe even though there was no judgement in her gaze. “We were on the list?”

The Doctor’s hearts clenched, remembering both the numbed haze he’d wandered about in after he’d lost Rose, putting Jackie and her on the list of the dead, and then the hurried, hearts-breaking conversation they had shared on that damned beach after weeks and weeks of searching for a way to get her back. He hadn’t had time to tell her then (he hadn’t had time to tell her a lot of things), but the Doctor, the man who never stayed for the clean-up, who never waded through the aftermath, who never said goodbye, had done all sorts of things he’d never imagined in the weeks that had followed that wretched day. And he’d done it all for her, even when he’d thought she would never know. “I have your things,” he blurted, suddenly.

“What things?” Rose asked, confused at his abrupt shift in topic.

“The...the flat,” he quietly confessed. “After…after I put you on the list, I used the psychic paper to alter your mum’s will and get into the flat. There wasn’t much money, but what there was I donated to that fund you told me about - the one that helps Estate kids go to university, and then I packed up all of your things. Pictures, clothes, that rubbish telly…even Jackie’s furniture. It’s all here, stored away in the TARDIS. I didn’t want...I couldn’t bear for some else to…” he trailed off, taking a deep breath, his hand falling from her cheek before continuing. “There was funeral as well. Empty caskets, of course, but no one questioned that. There were a lot funerals like that after...after Canary Wharf, I think. Anyway, I know how much humans value closure and I thought it might be comforting to your family and friends if they... Shireen was there. I recognized her from that time you dragged Jack and me out dancing with you. She didn’t recognize me, of course, no one did, but still - Oh! And Howard came, you know. Recognized him because he started to eat an apple in the middle of the service, not a satsuma - maybe he’d had enough of th-” 

He felt Rose’s soft touch nudging his chin up and he let his gaze drift to hers, trailing off from his babble as he looked into her grateful eyes. “Thank you,” she said, simply, gently pressing her lips against his in comfort.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered.

He was about to move and catch her lips with his once again when Rose spoke again. “I do wish Jack could be here,” she said, wistfully. “I think he wanted the two of us together even more than we did.” Rose laughed then, thinking of all of the Captain’s greeting card speeches about love and longing (and the other conversations that would have been much better suited to bodice-rippers - she had genuinely learned a lot from him). “If I had a tenner for every time he tried to convince me that you were in love with me…”

“You’d probably have an amassed fortune about equal to mine from the same thing,” he chuckled, grinning cheekily. Jack had been incessant in his nagging over what he saw as the Doctor’s criminal ignorance of Rose’s (and the Doctor’s own) feelings and ‘needs’. The former conman had given him a severe dressing down after a certain incident of gods-as-seasons-impersonation (Well, after they’d finally escaped from the Romans, that is. He never had gotten a chance to thank that one odd fellow...what was his name? Rominus? Ronicas?). Jack had actually almost convinced him to make a move in Japan (until they’d had to run for their lives) but when they’d arrived back at the TARDIS, there had been a bright light and then they’d been fighting for their lives on the Gamestation, a battle from which she had emerged a goddess and he a different man.

“We really were idiots, weren’t we?” Rose said abruptly, a bit of sad irony showing through her voice as she interrupted his thoughts. From the look on her face, it seemed that she had probably been reliving some of those memories too.

“Yeah,” he replied, nuzzling her nose. “But now we can be idiots together.”

“Stuck with you. That’s not so bad,” she grinned, taking care not to mention ‘never ever’ again. “Still, just imagine how fetching Jack would have looked in a bridesmaid frock.”

Regret flashed through the Doctor and, once again, Rose felt it. She tilted her head to the side and considered him closely, searching his face for the source of his guilt. 

She’d assumed, in the end, that Jack had died, despite the Doctor’s claim about him ‘rebuilding the Earth’. In the aftermath of the Gamestation, everything had been such a confusing whirlwind: him sending her away, Jackie and the borrowed truck, then her (still hazy) return to him, all of it confused in a swirl of gold with the odd tang of Time and the piquancy of power on her tongue. 

Then, of course, there had been her panic in the face of the Doctor’s...new face and his subsequent illness. Once they had started travelling again, the few times she had tried to bring Jack’s name up, the Doctor had quickly changed the subject and eventually, Rose had just accepted the Time Lord’s reticence to discuss him as an indicator of Jack’s death and so she had taken to mourning their friend in silence. 

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor made sure his shields were more firmly up (she seemed to be sensing a lot from him lately and he wasn’t quite willing to share everything yet. Someday, Rose would need to hear about the Master and the Valiant, but for now that horror was staying firmly in his own blackened memory) and then he straightened his spine and moved his hand down to clutch Rose’s tightly, unable to give up complete contact with her even though she might be very angry with him in a moment. He knew she had assumed that Jack had died on the Gamestation and, back then, he had been shamefully content to not correct her. The moment Rose had sent life rushing back into Jack’s lungs, he had felt that disturbing glitch that was the poor man’s new existence. Being anywhere near Jack had been difficult then, especially as raw as he had been from his strange regenerative brush with the Vortex and the subsequent sickness into which he’d descended. 

And, though he had been loathe to admit it for a long time, he’d been so scared and insecure that Rose wouldn’t accept him in his new form, he’d spun them away from the disconcerting anomaly that his frantic mind (and unconscious, uncompleted bond) saw as the one man who could have been a real threat to his relationship with Rose, as fast as he could, as far as he could.

His betrayal of Jack (and in his deliberate deception, of Rose) had been one of things that had haunted him most after he had lost her. The Doctor had carried that guilt on his thin shoulders heavily, never knowing if he would ever get the chance to make it right with the Captain or with their beloved Rose. After their horrendous not-year together on the Valiant, Jack had eventually forgiven him and the two of them had found a mutual, if still a bit uncomfortable, balance.

Surely Rose would forgive him, too. Even if he was still working on forgiving himself. 

Anyway, with a bit of tweaking, the TARDIS would be able to block his oddity while inside and he could probably devise a temporal dampener that would mute Jack’s twisted Time traces long enough for a handfasting. Besides, Rose deserved to know the truth and Jack deserved to see Rose, much as the Doctor didn’t really want to share her at the moment. If the one person in this universe Rose wanted present for their union was Jack, she should get him. Plus, as usual, she was completely correct. Jack had been planning this wedding for far longer than either of them.

Well, actually, that wasn’t quite true, was it? He thought back to whispered words on a Coricanan balcony and heartsfelt confessions in the TARDIS library. He was also going to have to come clean to Rose about where and when, precisely, he’d actually proposed to her the first time, wasn’t he?

Well, one thing at a time.

“Jack is alive, Rose,” the Doctor said, carefully, just wanting to get this secret out in the open.

Rose’s eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and she looked properly stunned. He could feel the disbelief and, oh, yes, that small little flare of betrayal he’d been desperately trying to avoid in her silence. “What?” she finally stammered.

“Jack is alive. He didn’t die on the Gamestation. Weeeellll, technically he did, but he didn’t stay that way. I’m so sorry that I let you think that he was gone and I’m sorry that we didn’t go back for him. His temporal signature is very difficult for me to be around, although I’ve gotten more used to it now, but back then, right after my regeneration, I was so confused and I was in pain and you were so scared and looking at me like I was something terrifying and….and I, I met him again, a few years after I lost you, Martha and I did. We’re ok now, Jack and me, not like we were before but we lived through...well, something awful together. I’ll tell you about it later, I promise, but it’s not something I want to relive now. He’s alive and he’s living in Cardiff, got his own team of Earth-saving misfits, and a boyfriend, last time I checked. Nice fellow, makes an excellent cuppa. Twenty-first century, actually and -”

“Doctor, slow down,” Rose interrupted, shaking her head and clapping a hand over his mouth. She waited until he’d taken a deep breath through his nose and then she slowly brought her hand down. “Jack...Jack’s alive?”

“Yes, Rose,” he replied, his hearts in his eyes as he watched her. 

Rose stared at the Doctor, her hand coming up over her own mouth in shock. Jack. Dear, sweet, playful Jack whom she had loved and mourned like the brother she’d never had (back then, anyway), was ALIVE. “He was alive and we...we just left him on the Gamestation? Alone?” she whispered. Oh, why hadn’t she questioned the Doctor more back then? She couldn’t imagine what the poor man must have gone through, facing down Daleks and then somehow surviving the end of civilization just to realize that the two people he loved more than anything else in the universe had left him behind.

“Yes,” the Doctor answered, hanging his head. “I’m sorry, Rose. I gave you all the reasons I had back then and I know some of them aren’t very good, but at the time...I thought it was for the best.”

Rose was silent again and the taciturn reticence that fell over the two of them felt suffocating and cloying. He opened his mouth to speak once more, to say something, anything, to fill the rapidly increasing void between the two of them but Rose held up her hand in a plea for his silence. He clicked his jaw shut and waited, clutching her hand desperately. 

“What did you mean when you said Jack didn’t stay dead?” Rose asked, finally.

Oh, wasn’t that always his girl. Finding the important questions buried in the mire of pain even when they were the most masked. “He died, Rose. Exterminated by a Dalek. I felt him go. But then you came back with all the power of Time and Space in your head and…”

“I bring life,” breathed Rose, sounding disturbingly like she had that fateful day, glowing slightly and making his hearts clench in fear again, even as the TARDIS purred comfortingly to him. The gold quickly faded and Rose’s own hazel eyes looked back at him. “Oh my God. I brought him back to life, didn’t I?” she asked, quietly, a tear sliding down her cheek. 

“Yeah,” he replied, moving his free hand up to chase the tear away. “But you did it a bit too well. He can’t die now. Well, he actually can. And he has. He just doesn’t...stay that way.”

Rose cringed, closing her eyes, and tried to slip her hand from his but he held on resolutely. “That’s horrible,” she said, shaking her head. “He must...he must hate me so much.”

“He doesn’t Rose,” the Doctor said, fervently. “He really doesn’t. We talked about it. He knows you did it because you...cared about him so much. And he was heartbroken, Rose, when he saw you on that list. When I told him you were alive, well, he was very glad.”

“Can I see him?” she asked, weakly. “If...if you think he’d want to see me, that is.”

“Of course,” he answered, although the bond reacted in alarm, a wave of jealousy flashing over him, which he immediately tried to squelch. “And I know he’ll want to see you. He said he’d visited you, actually. When you were growing up. He watched over you.” 

Rose blinked at him and he could see, quite clearly, in her mind’s eye as memories slotted into place, a mysterious man from the shadows of her adolescent periphery becoming Jack’s protective presence. The Doctor felt a surge of both warmth and envy at that little glimpse into Rose’s life that Jack had shared and he hadn’t, which Rose noticed. “Are you going to be ok with having him here? If he’ll accept, I’d like to have him at the ceremony.” The Doctor nodded and she continued, “And don’t think this conversation is over, you. We’re going to talk more about this later.”

“Anything for you, Rose,” the Doctor replied seriously, releasing her hands to set the coordinates for 21st century Cardiff. “Anything at all.”

The TARDIS took off with her customary jolt and both of them grinned at one another, basking in the familiar feeling of home together, even if emotions were suddenly a little stretched. When they landed, Rose took a deep breath and brushed the remainder of tears from her cheeks. “How do I look?” she stammered, straightening the bottom of her shirt.

“Beautiful, as always,” the Doctor replied, kissing her on the nose. He took a quick glance at the monitor and saw the Captain’s familiar silhouette racing across the square toward the doors. “Do you want me to stay out here with you?” Being away from Rose’s warmth seemed abhorrent to him, but at the same time he recognized that Rose and Jack might need a few moments to themselves. Taking a deep breath and ensuring that the bond was at least mostly under control, he accepted the slight shake of Rose’s head. He could give them a few minutes. Five. No, ten. He could handle ten minutes apart from her. He thought.

“I think I’d better speak with him alone at first,” she said, squeezing the Doctor’s hand as she felt the wave of jealousy he wasn’t quite able to hide. “Besides, you’ve got a task to do yourself, mister.”

“That’s Doctor Mister to you, fuzzy,” he replied, tartly, and she giggled. “Wait, what task?”

“Well, hopefully in a few moments, I am going to have a maid of honour. And I think you’ve also got an incomparable best mate on board. Time to go get yourself a best man,” Rose answered with a tongue-in-teeth grin, raising her eyebrows when he continued to stare at her blankly.

“Who - oh!” he laughed, delightedly. “You’re right. She’ll love that. Although, if I ask her to be my best man, she’ll probably slap me. And she could compete with your mother for the champion slapper of England. Ooo, best not ever say that again.”

“Better figure out a new wording then, Doctor,” Rose said, shoving him playfully toward the corridor. “Go on, impress me. And make some tea!” 

He sauntered away, glancing back only once to see Rose’s resolute, steeled expression as the sound of knocking came from the other side of the TARDIS door.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rose took a deep breath and pulled open the TARDIS door, stepping aside as the familiar form of her old friend tumbled in. 

“Doctor!” Jack panted, excitedly. “You’re never going to guess what we -” 

Jack froze as his eyes locked on Rose standing by the door, her teeth in her bottom lip and her hands twisting nervously in front of her. “R-rose?” he stammered, taking an almost involuntary step toward her. “How can you - you’re - wait. When am I? Your Doctor...what does he look like?” Jack’s demeanor was still calm, but she knew the man well enough to see the underlying tension of the Time Agent within him.

“Big hair, swishy coat, and a killer arse,” Rose replied, with a small smile. “Talks too much, eats like a horse, and kisses really, really well.”

“Kisses? So you’re from...you’re...you two...ROSE!” he yelled then, surging forward to wrap her up in a tight embrace and swinging her around just like she remembered. She kept her arms tight around his neck and Jack held her so close that she heard her back crack. When he finally pulled back, there were tears in his eyes and on her cheeks. “How did he find you?” 

“It’s a long story,” Rose answered, her smile growing wider. 

“Well, lucky for you, I’ve got all the time in the world,” Jack bantered playfully, not considering his words until Rose blanched.

Even with the colour drained from her face, Rose kept her firm hold on the front of his coat and she began to cry again. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry. He...he told me what I did. And I don’t know how I could ever apologize enough.”

“Rose -” Jack began, reaching up to wipe some of her tears away with his thumb.

“I’m sorry that we left you, I’m sorry that we didn’t come back, and I’m sorry that I didn’t ask him more questions. I’m sorry I made you immortal. I just...I couldn’t bear the thought of the world without you.”

“Oh, Rosie,” he sighed, pulling her into his embrace again. “I know. And I understand.”

“But -” Rose said, her voice muffled in his shoulder as she tried to pull back.

“Nope, my turn,” Jack said, squeezing her tightly once more before releasing her. “It’s been hard, I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve seen a lot of things and done a lot of things and lost a lot of people.”

“You must hate me,” she said softly, looking down at her feet. Jack took her chin and tenderly tilted it up to look him in the eye again.

“Rose, listen. I’ve lived a long, long time. I’ve been angry, I’ve been happy, and I’ve died in more ways than you could possibly imagine. But in all that time, I never stopped loving you. You were the best friend I ever had. You saved me...and not just from that Dalek. You did something even bigger, all those years ago in the middle of the London Blitz...you saved me from myself.”

He took a deep breath and then exhaled before continuing, “I haven’t been a saint this whole time...haven’t even always even been a good man. But I tried to do good things, I tried to help people, and I tried to make things better. For you, Rose. I tried to be the man you saw inside me, the man you thought was worth saving, even if I didn’t deserve it.”

“I’m sure you have been, Jack,” she answered, sniffling and pulling him in for a hug again. “And I love you, too.”

“Good,” he answered, playfully kissing her on the nose and spinning her around in a circle. “Now, I believe you said something about a long story. That involves kissing. Which I expect to hear all about.”

“Oh, you’re going to love it,” Rose said, smiling widely, tugging him toward the kitchen. “It involves three Doctors.”

“At the same time, I hope,” Jack cracked, relishing having her back with him. So many things had changed in the last few hundred years but she was still Rose. And he really would always love her.

Laughing delightedly, Rose answered, “No, just one at a time. Although...that’s an idea.”

“Glad to hear that he’s finally come to his senses, then. And you’ve reeaallly got to fill me in. All that repression, not to mention the respiratory bypass and the dual cardiovascular system? Hubba, hubba!” Jack teased, swinging their joined hands and waggling his eyebrows. She barely heard Jack as he continued, “Plus, this one is always licking things! Didn’t that drive you mad?” because the Doctor had just done something to the odd little string that tied the two of them together and she suddenly wanted very much to be beside him, touching him, wanting him.

But before they walked into the kitchen, where Rose could already hear the Doctor banging about, chattering a million words a minute away at Donna, she tugged on Jack’s hand, pulling him up short. “Jack, before we join them, I have a very important question to ask you.”

His bright blue eyes smiled at her in the corridor as he said “Anything for you, Rosie.” 

“Well, then, Jack Harkness...will you be my Maid of Honour?”

She was certain that all those noseless dogs on Barcelona heard his answering squeal of joy.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, in another corridor

The Doctor strode through the halls, whistling to himself and experimenting with the bond in relation to his proximal distance from Rose, when he found himself at Donna’s door. He knocked on the door loudly (Donna had very, very quickly put an end to his no-knocking policy after an embarrassing encounter with a small purple towel that neither of them had ever mentioned again). As he heard her approach on the other side, he suddenly realized that he hadn’t thought at all about what he was actually going to say to her.

“What’re you doing here?” Donna asked, pulling her door open and placing one hand on her hip. The telly was blaring in her room and she had a half-eaten sandwich in her other hand. 

“I -”

“Because I’d figured you’d be off shagging blondie out there for the next, you know, forever. Unless, hmmm…” she trailed off a moment, speculatively eyeing his slightly rumpled form up and down and then glancing at her watch, contemplatively.

“What - what are you doing?” the Doctor sputtered.

“Just...calculating,” Donna answered with an evil grin. 

“Well, stop it!” he said, frantically, feeling his blush start.

“Oooo, blushing! That’s new! I quite like that,” Donna crowed. “But seriously, you were stuck on her like a starfish when I left the console room earlier. You two were so busy getting reaquainted, you didn’t even notice I’d left. Oh, you didn’t muck it up already, did you? Because I’m willing to bet that whatever it is, it was your fault.”

“For you information, we have not yet become ‘acquainted’ in the way you are, rather obtusely, I might add, referring and if we had, we’d still be at it, thank you very much. Time Lord -”

“Gross,” Donna interrupted, pulling a face at him, but pulling her door open further so he could come in. 

 

“Second, I haven’t mucked anything up and c, aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” he asked, petulantly plopping down in an armchair near the large television in her room.

“I’ve lived with you long enough to know that if something’s wrong, it’s your fault,” Donna retorted. “Console’s on fire - your fault. Village exploded - your fault. No jam - your fault. But if you’re not in trouble, then why are you in here with me and why aren’t you off with time travel Barbie doing whatever it is your species does to reunite after a long absence?” She gave him a deep look and he smiled at the concern under her sharp words, wondering once again how he’d ever managed to find a friend like her.

“Rose and I went to pick up another friend and I promised to give them a little space,” the Doctor said, fiddling with the remote. Ten minutes of space. Which was now 5.3132 remaining minutes of space.

“That doesn’t sound like you,” Donna said, speculatively, and then, after a long pause, added “She’s good for you.”

“I know,” he said, softly, and the two of them shared a long look. He cleared his throat and looked away, “What are you watching?”

“I had the TARDIS queue up all fifteen seasons of Downton Abbey for me, along with these handy noise-cancelling headphones and my own mini-fridge. I am set until you two finish ‘reacquainting’ and we go find a spa planet with a wonderful tanning bed,” Donna said with a satisfied smirk. 

“Donna, you really don’t need to -”

“I never want to see your skinny arse in anything less than those ridiculously tight trousers, Spaceman. And I know the two of you aren’t going to be able to keep your clothes on in the public spaces, at least not for a while,” she lectured. Donna reached over and plucked the remote from his hands before he could pull apart any more pieces and stood in front of his slouched form with her hands on her hips. “Now, why are you really in here?”

“I wanted to invite you to the kitchen to meet Rose,” the Doctor said, looking up at her. “It would really…” he coughed. “It’d mean a lot to me.”

“Done,” she said, pulling him up and shoving him out the door, following close behind. As they neared the kitchen, Donna stopped a moment.

“What was that you said about a friend?”

“Don’t,” the Doctor said, shaking his head. “Just, don’t.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Doctor was flitting around the kitchen, getting down the kettle, setting out mugs and sandwiches, and chattering at Donna about this and that, attempting to ignore the fact that his internal alarm clock had gone off, the ten minutes he’d promised himself he’d give Rose and Jack now passed into twelve, almost thirteen. He felt along the provisional bond and could tell that the two of them were moving toward the kitchen and, although he felt a bit guilty about it, he tugged at the bond slightly. Maybe that would encourage Rose to get in here faster. 

His musings were interrupted by an odd, unnaturally high-pitched noise outside the door and then, quite suddenly, Jack Harkness barrelled through the door, charging straight at him. The Doctor held his ground, unsure of Jack’s motives, when he found himself in an enormous bear hug. “You did it!” Jack shouted, pulling back and shaking the Doctor’s thin shoulders. “You finally did it, you crazy kids did it! Oh, I wish you still had those great big, sexy ears so you could hear me shout ‘I told you so’ even better. I TOLD YOU SO!” he yelled anyway, grinning from ear to ear. “HA!!!” Jack turned slightly, grabbing Rose’s hand and pulling her into the embrace as well, hopping up and down a bit, all of them laughing. 

He stepped away, shoving the two reunited lovers together, Rose stumbling slightly from his exuberant push. “Kiss!” he whooped as the Doctor steadied Rose with his hands on her hips. “Ki-iss! Ki-iss! Kisssss!!!” 

Blushing, Rose leaned in and brushed her lips against the Doctor’s, her intended short, chaste quickly becoming something quite a lot more as even their short separation cascaded into need.

Jack leered happily at them a moment before turning his gaze over to the table, realizing that they weren’t alone. There was an attractive red-head sitting at the table watching the Doctor and Rose with a sort of puzzled horror yet delighted fascination. “Well, hello there,” he said, smoothly sidling over to drop into the chair beside her with his most charming grin.

“Hello, yourself, Captain Tightpants,” Donna retorted, pulling her gaze away from the Doctor - the Doctor! - kissing Rose. 

“Oh, I like you,” Jack laughed, his smile widening. “Jack Harkness, at your service. Whatever service you like.”

Donna snorted but accepted his handshake with a raised eyebrow. “Donna Noble, at no one’s service.’

“I assume you helped make this happen?” he asked, seriously gesturing at the couple who was now simply standing forehead to forehead whispering to one another with his free hand. 

“A bit,” Donna admitted, smiling softly in response. “All he needed was a swift kick in the pants, really,” she continued, extracting her hand from Jack’s to wave it dismissively.

“It was much more than that, Donna,” the Doctor interrupted, pulling out a chair to sit down opposite from her with Rose right beside him. “I see you two have introduced yourselves already - and no, Jack. Just...no. But allow me the honour...Donna Noble, meet the fantastic Rose Tyler. And Rose Tyler, meet the brilliant Donna Noble.”

Rose reached across the table and shyly took Donna’s hand, squeezing it. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “And...thanks.”

“All right, Rosie, I think you two owe us a story!” Jack exclaimed, helping himself to some of the biscuits the Doctor had placed on the table. “I think you said something about three Doctors - and I can’t even tell you what I’m thinking about that. And no leaving out the saucy details! I want to know whose screwdriver is the most impressive and which -”

“Absolutely yes leaving out the saucy details,” Donna interrupted, in agreement with the suddenly-sputtering Doctor. Rose simply laughed and blushed, pouring herself and the Doctor some tea and then passing the kettle across to Donna when she was finished. 

With a long, shared look, the Doctor and Rose launched into their fantastic tale of chance meetings and flared tempers, of stolen kisses and gifted secrets, and of love struggled for and love won. Donna and Jack interrupted frequently, “Velvet, Doctor, really?”, laughed often, “Punched in the face by Mickey Mouse!”, and cooed appropriately, “A whole planet of coloured glass?”. 

Jack had raised an eyebrow at the mention of Coricana but the Doctor had subtly shaken his head, so he hadn’t asked any further questions as Rose launched into the next portion of their tale and soon caught him up in fond remembrance of the man the Doctor used to be. 

“No! 1967? So that was you two! I thought I’d had some bad mushrooms! Ha! Naughty girl, Rose Tyler!”

Jack teared up as Rose recounted the Doctor’s apology in the library and Donna watched all three of them with kind eyes. The Doctor and Rose kept jumping in on top of each other as the tale unwound, finishing one another’s sentences and laughing themselves silly at some of their tales. It was so easy to see how they completed each other, how they needed one another and she couldn’t help but tear up a little bit herself. Just a moment ago, the Doctor had leaned in and nuzzled Rose’s nose, kissing her lightly and Jack reached over and squeezed her hand, the two of them exchanging the same sweet thoughts on the couple. 

When the stories had died down and the tea was all gone, Jack was the first to bring up their next action. “So, when is this wedding taking place, anyway? Because, while you two eye shagging across the table is appealing to me, I think you’d be better off doing it behind closed doors with other bits of you.”

The Doctor sputtered again and Donna snickered and then her eyes widened. “Wait, what wedding?”

Rose sighed in mock-indignation and turned to the Doctor. “You didn’t ask her yet?”

“I didn’t have time! She, she was accusing me of mucking things up and then babbling about the fictional lives of the some made-up British aristocracy and...and…calculating while you were out there, alone, with Jack for more than ten minutes and -”

“Spaceman!” Donna interrupted, reaching over to thump his shoulder, to Rose’s amusement. “Ask me what?”

The Doctor shifted in his seat and reached up to rub the back of his neck with the hand not connected to Rose. “Well, ah, Rose and I are going to, in a few hours, erm...tie the knot.” Donna made a high-pitched, happy sound and it seemed to fluster the Doctor once again. “Interesting, phrase, that. ‘Tie the knot’. The etymology of it is often argued over -”

“Doctor,” Rose interrupted with a grin.

“Right, yes. Donna,” he tried again, smiling nervously. “Would you, as my best mate, ah...stand for me in the ceremony?”

“Are you asking me to be your best man?” Donna asked, her eyebrows moving up to her hairline. 

“Ah...yes?” the Doctor replied, uncertainly, as if he was unsure whether or not he was about to get thumped again. “Only if you want. And I know that there is a certain social stigma -”

“Of course I will, you great daft alien!” she cried, springing around the table. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up from his seat, shaking him slightly and then pulling him into an enormous hug. Jack followed her, pulling Rose up to embrace her as well and then, because he could, merging the hugs into one, with all four of them laughing in delight.

After a moment, Rose’s muffled and amused voice said, “That better be the Doctor’s hand on my bum, Jack,” which caused a minor scuffle on the detanglement amidst the laughter.

“Well, I think it’s time to go get ready, what’dyou say?” Jack asked, turning to Rose. 

“Sounds good! I think the TARDIS is helping us out with our outfits; she just told us to go the wardrobe room,” Rose grinned, patting the table beside her.

“Ooo!” Donna exclaimed, excited. “A new dress! I hope there’s a hat!” With that, she went charging off through the door with Rose close behind her, chattering about colours and neck-lines.

The Doctor made to follow them, but Jack placed a hand on his chest. “Nope! Can’t see the bride in her dress before the ceremony! Those are the twenty-first century rules! Gwen told me so.” 

“Jack, that is preposterous, groundless poppycock and I don’t think -”

“C’mon, Doc,” he said, dropping his hand. “Just let us have this, ok? Go get dressed, take us to Barcelona, and get the wedding of her dreams set up for her. Donna and I will take care of Rose.”

The Doctor sighed but felt the TARDIS nudge him in agreement with Jack and nodded. “Good man,” Jack smiled, clapping him on the shoulder and then disappearing out the door with a jaunt in his step, whistling something that he was fairly certain came from ‘My Fair Lady’. 

Letting his own smile bloom at the thought of finally sharing with Rose what he’d always dreamed, he caressed the bond and felt her singing joy radiate back to him. Taking up Jack’s tune, he began whistling himself, practically running to the console room.

Barcelona!


End file.
